I'll Be Just Like You
by oranges-and-leather-boots
Summary: Now that Mayor Lockwood's gone, Tyler is trying to start drawing again. But for some reason the only thing he can think of to draw is a certain person. He's pretty sure that doesn't mean anything good.
1. You Know I Could Be Just Like You

**Why is it that when I enter "Tyler L." and "Jeremy G." into the character search options on this site and hit "ROMANCE", stories come up that are not slash? This should not be.**

**Jyler is about as obvious as Jack and Ianto, for christ's sake, **_**and they are canon**_**. I mean, the Vampire Diaries are playing for the teenage girl market **_**hard**_** with the 2 Hot Guys Alone In A Room Breathing Heavily At Each Other And "Arguing", Occasionally While Shirtless, Card. I enter as exhibit A any scene that includes Damon and Stephan having a "brotherly talk". (Air quotes in the extreme. If any brother of **_**mine**_** walked into my room to talk about matters of life and death and vampirism, I would tell him at least to wait until I had all my clothes on, first. Then I would check to see that he wasn't on any heavy medication. Everyone knows **_**my **_**family are werewolves.)**

**So I feel it is my duty to finally contribute to the side of those who have seen the light. **

**This is not, in fact, Jyler yet. Instead, Tyler takes a dip in the crystalline waters of the good old river Denial, where he once again encounters the crocodiles of the obvious, who whack at him with foreboding hammers. (Gee, Tyler, I dunno. Maybe this happens to you because **_**you're a werewolf,**_** which we guessed in episode one, **_**and there is a full moon sitting on top of your head.**_**) I'm not sure why he likes to swim there, but he sure does do it a lot.**

**Warning:...Tyler is a dick and says bad words?**

**...**

Tyler knew it wasn't a good thing. Probably wasn't going to end well at all, really, though what exactly was going to go wrong the awkward feeling in his stomach never told him. It was only a feeling.

But still, it felt a little odd that the only thing he could think of to draw was Jeremy. Not surprising—he had been always been painfully bad at finding subjects, one of the reasons he had finally lost patience. Fantastic as some of his figures might be, the ideas came slowly and at great intervals; only once he had finally happened upon exactly the right one could he visualize it perfectly, almost obsessively, and draw.

And after all, Jeremy had been the one who had planted the thought of drawing again in his head. And one evening, alone in the house, his brain had pulled it out again and presented it to him as a compulsion that wasn't about to be ignored.

The ideas never came on command, and after impatient minutes of staring at the paper and rejecting every image that he'd thought of—too hard, too easy, too boring, just plain not right—his subconscious had summoned a picture of Jeremy. That one felt perfect. Tyler had been able to see it exactly, the details waiting to be transferred from mind to hand to borrowed printer paper, and the need to start that hand moving had yanked at its tethers. He wasn't much good at portraiture, really—at all, in any way—but it was probably that or sitting and staring at the paper all night. Or until he ripped it in half; more likely—or gave in and tried to draw something he didn't want to just for the sake of it, which would result in something half-assed that would only piss him off. So he had started drawing Jeremy.

And now, three days later, he was _still_ drawing Jeremy, still able to think of nothing but drawing _fucking_ Jeremy. It wasn't that he meant to, but each time he sat down to sketch something it just happened. And that was just—well, sort of _icky,_ supplied the part of him that had never quite stopped being five years old. Anything involving Jeremy was a bit _icky_. Uncomfortable, awkward. Weird. He balked at thinking about any of the things that felt that way, for fear of learning anything further.

But even with that, the just—weirdness—of the idea of thinking about Jeremy Gilbert at all, it also felt almost natural. He had pushed down the five year-old him simply to spite it for its irritating continued existence, and kept at it, and soon began not to think about it at all.

And drawing Jeremy was, really, in many ways a good thing. He needed practice drawing real things, realistic people—portraits and things like that had always been his stumbling block, and in a way that one artistic failing had always been what hurt the most about his drawings. Tyler could trace out whatever was in his mind with, if not ease, complete accuracy, but the level of detail and understanding required to make a lifelike, human face or form out of graphite and paper had always been an annoyingly unattainable goal. Fantasy had always been easier for him, but that made it feel like settling somehow, like it was less worthy. But he still stuck with it, because, well, realism was too hard for him to try to change. And he had always hated himself for that, just a little.

What a surprise.

Now that he was starting again, however, Tyler had thought, he might as well put in the effort he had never particularly bothered to before. That meant a choice between practicing on a memory of a person or a memory of an object—no way he was asking anyone to model, or let his mother catch him drawing her, and there was only so long he could sketch an apple placed at his windowsill before he went mad with boredom. Or ate it. That meant it might as well be a person, then, and there hadn't been anyone in particular he would want to draw. So if Jeremy his subconscious picked, he couldn't think of any definite reason why Jeremy it shouldn't be.

It certainly was good practice. It wasn't as painful as he had thought, he considered, looking at one. And maybe that was because he hadn't really tried before, but maybe also, just maybe, he had gotten better.

They looked like Jeremy, at least—though why did that boy keep growing his hair out? It was bloody annoying, Tyler was starting to find, given that he was working from strung-together memories, and often the damn hair looked far too long or far too short at whatever angle he was drawing, and he couldn't seem to recreate the way it flopped about. But the nose was right; and the eyebrows—very straight, the mainly moved from side to side—when he had a feeling that when he got those the whole thing would begin to work. It was odd how a few details could immediately recreate a person for you, and especially details that he realized now he had never consciously noticed before. Now, inspecting his memories, he was able to find some of those things that made his mental images of Jeremy look like Jeremy.

It wasn't even as if he was properly thinking about Jeremy, anyway. Just looking, and that within the safety of his own imagination. He didn't have to feel anything, he could just look and assess on the purely visual plane, analyze the fall of light and shadow on a face just as he would anyone else's. At some point it wasn't even Jeremy any more, just an image, an assemblage of details, and he could sit on his bed for hours, an atlas as an easel on his lap, staring at the space in front of the wall where, in his mind, Imaginary Jeremy revolved. The construct, assembled at first from snapshot memories before beginning to exist on its own, became like a doll that he could move about to practice drawing from any angle.

The drawings were shit sometimes—often. He wasn't much good at it, really: his hand failed, never quite able to make the shapes he could envision so clearly, or he forgot what he was doing, working without an actual subject, and drew as if there were two light sources, ruining the way the shadows fell. Even the mental image itself, that seemed at first perfectly clear, grew fuzzy when he tried to focus on a single detail—because after all how much time did he spend looking at fucking irritating Jeremy?

But sometimes, too, they were pretty fucking good.

Looking at the first sketch—a three-quarters view of head and shoulders, and with realistic drawings he'd always _sucked_ at those—that came out more than decent, Tyler had had to work hard not to start laughing.

It had been a long time since he had laughed just because he was happy.

**...**

**Aw.**

**This is why I should not start writing at two o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. But hey! they canceled school, and so all is well with Jamie.**

**Except that jamie's brain toast and jamie has homework to do and also needs to shovel the drive and I would like some orange juice, but do we have any? I don't think so, curses, and also yet again there is this thing called "plot", here, which jamie has only just realized my story requires. Also, am I capable of resisting the urge to write yet another thing with two POVs? I don't think so. What do you think?**

**Can you say "review", children?**

**Knowing me, a second part may well be up by tonight. Or, alternatively, next July.**

**...**

**Second PS: driveway done!**

**jamie has sandwich.**

**Yumm.**


	2. I Could Be Mean

**Why is it that when I enter "Tyler L." and "Jeremy G." into the character search options on this site and hit "ROMANCE", stories come up that are not slash? This should not be.**

**Jyler is about as obvious as Jack and Ianto, for christ's sake, **_**and they are canon**_**. I mean, the Vampire Diaries are playing for the teenage girl market **_**hard**_** with the 2 Hot Guys Alone In A Room Breathing Heavily At Each Other And "Arguing", Occasionally While Shirtless, Card. I enter as exhibit A any scene that includes Damon and Stephan having a "brotherly talk". (Air quotes in the extreme. If any brother of **_**mine**_** walked into my room to talk about matters of life and death and vampirism, I would tell him at least to wait until I had all my clothes on, first. Then I would check to see that he wasn't on any heavy medication. Everyone knows **_**my **_**family are werewolves.)**

**So I feel it is my duty to finally contribute to the side of those who have seen the light. **

**This is not, in fact, Jyler yet. Instead, Tyler takes a dip in the crystalline waters of the good old river Denial, where he once again encounters the crocodiles of the obvious, who whack at him with foreboding hammers. (Gee, Tyler, I dunno. Maybe this happens to you because **_**you're a werewolf,**_** which we guessed in episode one, **_**and there is a full moon sitting on top of your head.**_**) I'm not sure why he likes to swim there, but he sure does do it a lot.**

**Warning:...Tyler is a dick and says bad words?**

**...**

Tyler knew it wasn't a good thing. Probably wasn't going to end well at all, really, though what exactly was going to go wrong the awkward feeling in his stomach never told him. It was only a feeling.

But still, it felt a little odd that the only thing he could think of to draw was Jeremy. Not surprising—he had been always been painfully bad at finding subjects, one of the reasons he had finally lost patience. Fantastic as some of his figures might be, the ideas came slowly and at great intervals; only once he had finally happened upon exactly the right one could he visualize it perfectly, almost obsessively, and draw.

And after all, Jeremy had been the one who had planted the thought of drawing again in his head. And one evening, alone in the house, his brain had pulled it out again and presented it to him as a compulsion that wasn't about to be ignored.

The ideas never came on command, and after impatient minutes of staring at the paper and rejecting every image that he'd thought of—too hard, too easy, too boring, just plain not right—his subconscious had summoned a picture of Jeremy. That one felt perfect. Tyler had been able to see it exactly, the details waiting to be transferred from mind to hand to borrowed printer paper, and the need to start that hand moving had yanked at its tethers. He wasn't much good at portraiture, really—at all, in any way—but it was probably that or sitting and staring at the paper all night. Or until he ripped it in half; more likely—or gave in and tried to draw something he didn't want to just for the sake of it, which would result in something half-assed that would only piss him off. So he had started drawing Jeremy.

And now, three days later, he was _still_ drawing Jeremy, still able to think of nothing but drawing _fucking_ Jeremy. It wasn't that he meant to, but each time he sat down to sketch something it just happened. And that was just—well, sort of _icky,_ supplied the part of him that had never quite stopped being five years old. Anything involving Jeremy was a bit _icky_. Uncomfortable, awkward. Weird. He balked at thinking about any of the things that felt that way, for fear of learning anything further.

But even with that, the just—weirdness—of the idea of thinking about Jeremy Gilbert at all, it also felt almost natural. He had pushed down the five year-old him simply to spite it for its irritating continued existence, and kept at it, and soon began not to think about it at all.

And drawing Jeremy was, really, in many ways a good thing. He needed practice drawing real things, realistic people—portraits and things like that had always been his stumbling block, and in a way that one artistic failing had always been what hurt the most about his drawings. Tyler could trace out whatever was in his mind with, if not ease, complete accuracy, but the level of detail and understanding required to make a lifelike, human face or form out of graphite and paper had always been an annoyingly unattainable goal. Fantasy had always been easier for him, but that made it feel like settling somehow, like it was less worthy. But he still stuck with it, because, well, realism was too hard for him to try to change. And he had always hated himself for that, just a little.

What a surprise.

Now that he was starting again, however, Tyler had thought, he might as well put in the effort he had never particularly bothered to before. That meant a choice between practicing on a memory of a person or a memory of an object—no way he was asking anyone to model, or let his mother catch him drawing her, and there was only so long he could sketch an apple placed at his windowsill before he went mad with boredom. Or ate it. That meant it might as well be a person, then, and there hadn't been anyone in particular he would want to draw. So if Jeremy his subconscious picked, he couldn't think of any definite reason why Jeremy it shouldn't be.

It certainly was good practice. It wasn't as painful as he had thought, he considered, looking at one. And maybe that was because he hadn't really tried before, but maybe also, just maybe, he had gotten better.

They looked like Jeremy, at least—though why did that boy keep growing his hair out? It was bloody annoying, Tyler was starting to find, given that he was working from strung-together memories, and often the damn hair looked far too long or far too short at whatever angle he was drawing, and he couldn't seem to recreate the way it flopped about. But the nose was right; and the eyebrows—very straight, the mainly moved from side to side—when he had a feeling that when he got those the whole thing would begin to work. It was odd how a few details could immediately recreate a person for you, and especially details that he realized now he had never consciously noticed before. Now, inspecting his memories, he was able to find some of those things that made his mental images of Jeremy look like Jeremy.

It wasn't even as if he was properly thinking about Jeremy, anyway. Just looking, and that within the safety of his own imagination. He didn't have to feel anything, he could just look and assess on the purely visual plane, analyze the fall of light and shadow on a face just as he would anyone else's. At some point it wasn't even Jeremy any more, just an image, an assemblage of details, and he could sit on his bed for hours, an atlas as an easel on his lap, staring at the space in front of the wall where, in his mind, Imaginary Jeremy revolved. The construct, assembled at first from snapshot memories before beginning to exist on its own, became like a doll that he could move about to practice drawing from any angle.

The drawings were shit sometimes—often. He wasn't much good at it, really: his hand failed, never quite able to make the shapes he could envision so clearly, or he forgot what he was doing, working without an actual subject, and drew as if there were two light sources, ruining the way the shadows fell. Even the mental image itself, that seemed at first perfectly clear, grew fuzzy when he tried to focus on a single detail—because after all how much time did he spend looking at fucking irritating Jeremy?

But sometimes, too, they were pretty fucking good.

Looking at the first sketch—a three-quarters view of head and shoulders, and with realistic drawings he'd always _sucked_ at those—that came out more than decent, Tyler had had to work hard not to start laughing.

It had been a long time since he had laughed just because he was happy.

**...**

**Aw.**

**This is why I should not start writing at two o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. But hey! they canceled school, and so all is well with Jamie.**

**Except that jamie's brain toast and jamie has homework to do and also needs to shovel the drive and I would like some orange juice, but do we have any? I don't think so, curses, and also yet again there is this thing called "plot", here, which jamie has only just realized my story requires. Also, am I capable of resisting the urge to write yet another thing with two POVs? I don't think so. What do you think?**

**Can you say "review", children?**

**Knowing me, a second part may well be up by tonight. Or, alternatively, next July.**

**...**

**Second PS: driveway done!**

**jamie has sandwich.**

**Yumm.**


	3. I Could Be Angry

**So. Here you go, people. (Um, if anyone reading this has no patience and just wants to see the story already to find out if it's crap or not, just scroll down. You **_**really**_** won't be missing out on much.)**

**Oh, and I did research again! I.e. trolled through my memories of the show to see if at any point inside the Lockwood's house they show us where the front door is relative to the cardinal directions, so I could work out which way the shadows would fall through a window on the back side of the house at about 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon. (I.e. right or left of the window if you were standing and looking at it.) Then I realized that I had made up the position of Tyler's room inside the house, so it would be a great deal of concentration for an uncertain answer that was, in fact, completely off base anyway. How very like the show... (Okay, that was mean. Then: how very remarkably like Elena's and Stephan's way of dealing with problems.)Okay. I'll stop railing on Elena and Stephan. I like them. Sort of.)**

**One thing they have certainly taught me about life and love: whenever you meet someone who understands your soul so completely that you both write EXACTLY THE SAME SENTENCES IN YOUR RESPECTIVE DIARIES, run screaming in the opposite direction. You will of course be able to foretell this happening before you even get to the diary reading, because that it the strength of the bond you share. You might even be able to foresee you leaving him for his own brother, and so save all of us a lot of trouble. On that subject: I do not like this thing where they made Stephan and Damon, and one was Good and one was Evil, and they wore little hats which said which was which. Then they realized that, obviously, we all thought Stephan was boring and wanted Damon to be the more important one, so they cuddled up briefly to the idea of making Damon Good (and Stephan sort of molested the idea of becoming Evil, but it bitch-slapped him. More on that another time.) Then they realized, of course, that both brothers would then be Good, which would anger the Powers That Be, and they would have to end their franchise early. And so a plan was hatched to stick both of them into a sort of suspended animation of being exactly where they were when it started, which was hovering on the edge of crossing to the other's side. Except that now, they have faked us out once. We have become embittered. We could practically taste out Damon Is The Romantic Lead Candy, and it was taken from us. Now we are stuck watching him go through his hundred and thirty first "To Kill or Not To Kill" scene. Actually, we don't need to watch any more. I can predict them all with uncanny accuracy: In a surprise move, Damon eats people.**

**Booyah.**

**The fire of my hope that when the show returns Damon will stop yet another car (does he have a fetish for being run over?), traumatize some poor lady, and lean in towards her only to have Stephan appear out of nowhere and devour her, at which point Damon is so overcome by emotion and this thing we call morality that he vows to defend the town from the evil menace of Stephan And His Pointy Nose is almost lost in ashes. Come on, people! Stephan and Damon are a yinyang. There will always be a little bit of Damon inside Stephan. Or the other way round if you prefer it.**

**AND YES I JUST SAID THAT. Booyah.**

**...**

Tyler threw himself onto his bed when he got home, heading straight from the sunny foyer up the stairs. No need to look about when the sound of an empty house already told him he was, once again, the only one home. His door made an irritatingly gentle sound as it swung closed, but it was swallowed by the noise of his footsteps as he crossed the hardwood floor and tossed himself down.

Quiet lowered again, and he lay for a few minutes on his stomach, cheek pressed against the pillow, listening to the muted thump of his own heart slowing.

The light of a late afternoon slipped through the open windows along the wall to his left, and he could smell the scent of his mother's favorite lavender from the garden below in the air. A breeze slipped in to stir it, making the long white curtains flick a little.

They were the same pattern as those on all the other windows in the house, and he had always liked the way the thin drapery moved and how it looked against the darkness of the aged wood all around. But he had disliked, too, that even though they felt so familiar to him they were just another institution of his mother's, and only seemed to be uniquely his.

One of them billowed out to the side to brush him and he growled, grabbed at the mattress with his hands and flipping onto his back. Still tense with irritation, he pushed himself up again, this time rocking all the way up to sitting at the edge of the bed and scooting a foot or so along it, away from the floating fabric. He stopped with his knees bent slightly so that his toes pressed one of the bedposts, and went still.

Tyler was never going to let anyone, besides Matt and a series of girls who'd been far to busy to notice, learn that he slept in a four-poster. An extremely antique four-poster, which meant it was a great deal smaller and less impressive than most people would imagine, especially since all but the uppermost covering had been forcibly removed when he was fourteen and broke his toe getting tangled in them.

He ran his fingertips over the blackened wood now, stretching out his arm, and then let it fall back to rest loosely over his knees. He didn't like this, he thought, considering his motionless fingers. He did not like this at all.

But he couldn't help it—and wasn't that just the story of his life—that he was starting to enjoy not just drawing drawings that happened to be of Jeremy, but drawing Jeremy. Tyler looked over, now, at where he knew the battered folder in which he kept his papers was placed in the gap between his desk and the bookcase against the right wall of the room.

These last few days he had felt flashes of what felt disturbingly close to affection for the Jeremies that he drew: smiling Jeremies, reading Jeremies, Jeremies on a table in the schoolyard, sleeping. It wasn't that they were pretty; he was fucked if he was ever going to say that, when if he even thought it he'd have to burn his brain later. And it certainly wasn't that he knew anything about the real Jeremy that was worth feeling fondness for. But when he looked at the better drawings, it was hard to deny the feeling of warmth. They weren't beautiful and they weren't of a beautiful subject, but they were right, and the joy of making a drawing accurate, of somehow taking a simple thing and making it special just by showing it as it was, spilled over and made him like them.

He wasn't about to tape them up on his walls, or anything—no way in a whole lot of hells—but every now and then Tyler had found himself opening the raggedy folder and looking at them when he sat at his desk, even when he didn't have time that night to add anything new.

Tyler had always told himself that he wasn't, though, because otherwise he would eventually be unable not to think about this again, and he'd rather put thinking off for a while longer. He wanted to slap himself for that now. More than slapping; he'd probably punch himself in the gut if he could. How could anyone be _so_ stupid?

He had enough self-awareness to have to admit, now that he'd reached this point, that that wasn't half as unexpected as he would like it to be.

He had been so busy telling himself that he wasn't doing it that he barely noticed the first time he spoke to Imaginary Jeremy, or that he had begun to do so frequently, muttering to himself as he worked. Little things—_Oh, made your eyes too big there _or _Sorry about that_ or_ Why the fuck does your hair do that, it's weird—_that Tyler had always had a bit of a tendency to say to any drawing, though he wasn't about to tell anyone that. But even though they ought to feel just like those times, they weren't.

Because, he knew, he wasn't really talking to the paper.

Just yesterday Tyler had found himself imaginary his Jeremy's reactions when he addressed it, picturing how the other boy would respond with a smile or one of those little frowns that looked more like he was about to cry than anything else. He had unconsciously avoided thinking about those frowns, or Jeremy's angry face.

Instead it was the calmer expression, the slow smiles, he had been imagining. Those were the things he almost never got to really see, and yet he had thought nothing of it.

Indeed, he thought now, of _course_ his imagination had produced those visions and left him with an instinctive desire to avoid the others. It was easier not to remember the way things really were, that way, than when he thought about the glowers that were what the actual Jeremy always wore around him.

Tyler groaned aloud again, louder this time, and rested his chin against his knees. It was happening even now—all the time in his head he could see Jeremy, Jeremy's face. The internal Jeremy beamed at him, caught in the middle of a laugh with his eyes half closed and full of light.

He realized coming home today, after seeing Jeremy, that he wanted to see Jeremy do all the things he'd thought about, for real.

He wanted to see him smile. He had to bite his hand, gently but firmly, to keep himself from making another noise when pure longing welled up inside him, making his stomach clench.

After a moment Tyler pulled the hand out of his mouth in exasperation and ran the fingers distractedly through his hair before giving up the fight to act calm and clutching at his scalp in sheer irritation at all the other emotions which surged through him.

Every thought took him back to _fucking, fucking_ Jeremy, and his own absolute inability to think straight was driving him insane. Every path in the mire his mind had become led inevitably back to the center, and all he wanted was _out_.

But at the same time, Tyler could feel his stomach fill with pleasant butterflies every time a train of thought crashed into yet another image of Jeremy, and the little flash of warmth that shot through him with each one was addicting. It got harder with each one not to let his attempts at rational thought fall apart into nothing but contemplation of Jeremy.

Daydreaming. Daydreaming, about Jeremy.

Oh, fucking _hell._

This just wasn't—no. Just, no. He couldn't be doing this.

The wave of disappointment that slammed through Tyler then made the whole room seem suddenly dark. It was ridiculous; he was behaving like child deprived of sweets, he told himself firmly, trying to avoid the thought that Jeremy would then be the Kit Kat bar in the equation, which caused another glow of pleasure just because it contained any mention of Jeremy at all.

Or like a girl with a new crush. Alternatively.

It wasn't that there was anything in particular that made the images interesting. Why should he even _care_ if Jeremy was never cheerful again—if he ever had been, which Tyler frankly doubted—and grew old alone and miserably, much less have such an intense desire to witness the opposite? He didn't care about Jeremy. He didn't know anything worth caring about about Jeremy. Not any more than he did about anyone else, anyway. But while he had been able to ignore it when he had only thought about Jeremy when he was drawing—when it was perfectly explicable for him to spend long stretches focusing on nothing else—seeing the real Jeremy, when he didn't have any such excuse, had made it quite clear that Jeremy was, quite simply, fascinating. He was certain he could lie here and think about nothing more than wishing he could see Jeremy for hours, though what exactly he would do if he actually could was utterly beyond him. All he could imagine doing was, well, watching him, the real one, and Jeremy letting him. Which seemed simply pointless, and rather like courting death as Jeremy would presumably prefer a hike through hell to such a thing, but the thought of being allowed to do it made his insides fizz like a can of Coca Cola.

Tyler might have recently reestablished himself as an absolute idiot, but he wasn't capable of misunderstanding what that feeling meant. But right now, he really had no choice in the matter. He couldn't fucking think, or at least not think logically, when mental Jeremies were lurking around every corner and his disobedient brain seemed to be hooked on their existence like a drug.

Later, he thought, he would find a way to reason out of this, and a time to explain to rebellious parts of himself all of the reasons that he was starting to feel sick. But for now he lay back, one hand falling over the edge of the bed into the sunlight, and let the sugar rush of remembering Jeremy's pale face that morning alleviate the headache that was starting to pound above his eyes, and the bitterness that that very sight had left.

For now, at the moment outmatched, he had no tactical option but to retreat. His case against himself had no chance of winning when the other option had such face value appeal. His side was just too weak.

He really hated that.

**...**

**No talkie anymore. Jamie is gagged from now on.**


	4. I could Be Fake

**Okay. No long note from me this time, because it is way too fucking late for me to be up doing this and honestly my brain is toasted at the moment. Also I have basically run out of things that I remember that are worth insulting of the top of my head, except for this:**

**Apparently the directors are considering consideration of a spin off series in a few years if the ratings stay good, and who else thinks that that should totally be a buddy movie about Caroline and Damon's adventures a hundred years or so in the future? (Because they are the only characters who would have a chance of surviving for more than five minutes if the show were happening for real, and so would still be around then, and also I love me some skintight sci-fi outfits. Caroline would accessorize the fuck out of that.) I want to take a moment to appreciate the two of them, as a couple or not, because I think they have a great relationship. Sure, it had its issues (see the classic reference guide The Vampire Diaries: Morality? Eh. ) but now that Caroline is all VampireStrong (wouldn't those make great recruitment posters? I'm pretty sure Damon will try that one sometime soon, because Stefan can't really complain if they volunteer), she's still got enough personality flaws to be interesting-while being strong enough to kick Damon's prettyboy ass. And he obviously knows that, and she knows he managed to control her before but also knows (**_**because**_** he controlled her before and kept her as a sex slave and made her wear bad flowery scarf thingies to cover up the signs of that good old vampire lovin) his flaws, which means that what relationship they have now is pretty much entirely equal. I feel like they respect each other, and that's something that could get a lot more airtime these days. Isn't that a lot nicer than the idea of your partner being a crazy strong vampire, who **_**could**_** cherish and protect you, but could also treat you like shit?**

**Anyway.**

**So not such a short note, really.**

**this chapter contains Matt and a cat and DIALOGUE. **_**Yes**_**, "finally." **

**I forgot about it, okay?**

**...**

Tyler wasn't certain why Geometry had been created, but he was fairly sure the invention had taken place in hell.

It was too hot, and beside him Matt had little fingertip in his mouth and his jaw about six inches off or the desktop, because it was supported on a forearm the elbow of which was supported rather uncomfortably on Tyler's left hand. He had been trying to take notes for a while, but with his wrist quite effectively pinned it was rather more difficult to manipulate the paper, and he had fallen back to simply staring at the pages in case latent powers might cause the right numbers to appear there. Matt made little mumbling noises ever now and then, chewing absentmindedly on his little finger, which was something he only did when he was sincerely unaware that he was half-asleep, and Tyler knew better than to either try to mutter something to wake him—bringing down the wrath of Mrs. Dodd upon them—or to shift him off. That would result in Matt simply reaching out and pulling Tyler's arm back again, and before Tyler knew it he would be facedown on the tabletop with a still barely unconscious Matt using his shoulder as a pillow. There were some things that the inmates of fifth period really didn't need to see.

So he kept staring at his notebook, blinking hard to push back infectious slumber himself each time Matt made another sleep sound under his breath. It wasn't as though anyone else was paying attention; even the scrawny straight-A girls from the field hockey team at the next table up were whispering genteelly among themselves, getting a kick out of the aberrational breaking of rules. Everyone was talking quietly, making a low-level layer of chatter beneath the teacher's drone that seemed underwhelming for the first half hour and was now starting to feel gradually louder and louder. He strained to find a single moment without some sound, a second of silence, and voices scratched against his ears.

It was too hot, and too noisy, and the windows in the right wall didn't open.

Matt twitched, lifting his head. "What'd she say?" he demanded, fortunately quietly, once he had managed to successfully locate Tyler.

Tyler shrugged. "The cosine of x," he muttered, eyes fixed but unfocused on the blackboard.

"Oh." Matt shook his head, blinking, then paused. "What about it?"

"Fucked if I know."

"Oh."

"Yup." Matt considered this blearily for another moment, then shook his head again and propped it on his hand, whatever had awoken him from his fog apparently enough to discourage him from returning. Tyler watched him for a moment, then closed his own eyes briefly, flexing the sore muscles in his wrist.

He might as well start taking notes again, he thought when the discomfort eased. Half an hour left, and right now thirty minutes of faking notes would seem shorter than thirty minutes in which his mind was free to travel. No knowing where it might end up.

Opening his eyes, he focused on the clean notebook paper before him. It seemed to shift closer and farther away from him as his eyes readjusted to the bright light around the windows even after such a short time covered. Or…

He sighed and reached for his pencil, where it no longer sat before his textbooks. Sighing again in irritation, Tyler considered. He must have knocked it off the edge, but he couldn't exactly stand to get it without attracting attention that he simply didn't have energy to deal with right now.

Giving up on that plan, he leaned back, folding his arms across his chest and unconsciously squeezing just a little too hard. Just as well—he did not need to start doing anything…odd…right now.

A few minutes later Matt's elbow bumped him, and then again, on purpose this time. Tyler made a noise to indicate he was listening.

"How much longer?"

Tyler checked. Still very close to half an hour. Either he had underestimated earlier, or time really was passing remarkably slowly. "Thirty minutes."

"Oh." Matt was busy with something he was scratching into his own book. Tyler couldn't see behind his moving hand, although there was a distinctly damp spot distorting the paper of the visible upper right corner. "Are you doing anything tonight?"

Tyler considered. "No," he said finally.

"Why not?"

That was out of place. Because there was nothing happening tonight except the usual low level parties he would attend only if he was bored enough to need to, and those where under such general assumption that they didn't need a mention? "Because," he said. "You know man. There's stuff. But there's nothing big you haven't told me about, or anything, is there?"

"No," Matt said, in the tone that always made Tyler want to slap him because he suspected it was the sound of Matt only pretending to be oblivious, as opposed to the days when he actually was. But twelve long years hadn't given him any proof yet. Matt turned his paper a little, studying it closely. "But. You don't normally just say that."

"Say what?"

"Just no. You always say at least something."

Tyler uncrossed his arms, moving to rest his elbows on the table and leaning a bit sideways towards Matt so they could speak more easily in a casual undertone. "No I don't. I'm a man of few words."

Matt snorted, turning it into a cough. Tyler frowned at him, not certain of the purpose of this conversation and irritated by it. "Yes?"

A little shrug. "I'm just saying," Matt muttered. "You'd usually say something. I mean, if you're staying home for the night you'll still talk about your Xbox plans. Whatever you're looking forward to. I dunno."

Tyler frankly doubted that, he thought, because Matt might be an irritating bastard but he always had a point, and he knew where it was waiting even if you didn't.

That was probably why he was an irritating bastard, actually.

"Just, you're not really going to do nothing," Matt continued, making it sound just enough like a question that Tyler was sure he was going to have to answer it while at the same time possessing suspicious similarity to a statement.

"Yeah, I am," Tyler informed him. "There's nothing happening, I'm tired, and you aren't making it better."

Sometimes he wished Matt wasn't immune to snappishness, even when it was expressed politely. But Matt was Matt, and ignored the bite of the words. "No," he said, "You're not. You can't seriously be doing nothing worth looking forward to. I mean, even if you're gonna lie in bed and eat those disgusting granola bars all evening, that's got to be interesting to you, or you wouldn't be doing it." He adjusted his notebook again, and this time Tyler could see his hand wielding a quite familiar green cap eraser.

He sighed. "When did you decide my head my head needed shrinking?"

"I was just asking," Matt said conversationally. "So. I was gonna stop by the Grill with the guys or something." He made no indication whatsoever that Tyler was supposed to think it was an offer. Just the next song that came up on Matt Radio.

The guy was a piece of work. "Who?" Tyler asked, sinking his head onto his hand.

"Charlie maybe. He and Kylee are back together now. Maybe Zack."

Tyler made a humming noise.

"You'll be having fun with your granola things?"

"What do you have against my Power Bars?"

"Nothing. Just asking."

"Yes then. My Power Bars and I will be enjoying ourselves."

Matt smiled. "That's nice, then." He brushed away eraser dust, and Tyler hummed again, looking over the little drawing of the Donovan's neighbor's arthritic and beloved cat, Duster. At least he was fairly sure it was Duster; it looked like a teddy bear crossed with a toilet brush.

Fairly accurate.

Matt turned Tyler's pencil around again to add another detail to the toilet brush's face, and Tyler watched the path of the dark lead, almost hypnotized by the simple curving line.

His finger twitched, and he forced them under the table.

Trying to distract himself, he turned to look out the window instead, watching green leaves flicker in the sun.

It could be stressful, having an extremely accurate—if not necessarily perceptive—friend. Now that he had time to think about it, he wasn't sure he'd ever lied to Matt before. Been an utter dick, certainly, but that was a more a problem of too much bitter honesty than too little. He hadn't said 'nothing' because he had nothing he felt like doing. He had said it because he had very clear plans for lying on his bed most of the evening and slightly vaguer ones for finishing off the last of his borrowed apples and, possibly, one of the promised Power Bars, but mostly plans for doing nothing that would reduce the amount of time he had for thinking about Jeremy.

It was a full-fledged hobby now, and he could spend hours at it provided nothing happened to awaken his logical side, which would immediately put a stop to it every time. But most of the time it slumbered uneasily, restless but still drugged by whatever foreign creature had worked its way into his blood.

He had underestimated how long the obsession's power now seemed likely to last. He avoided thinking about that very topic, now, out of fear of what the answer might be, and fear of what answer he might discover he wanted.

He had started on a new drawing the night before, after a few hours of moping about had worn down his resistance by simply boring him silly. It was a little larger than he had tried working before, and showed Jeremy sitting on the loosely sketched bones of one of the docks around the lake, turned away but looking out over his shoulder and with his feet under the water. Tyler had worked on it slowly, as he kept thinking about what it would be like to do something like swimming with Jeremy, what it would be like if they were friends. It seemed almost impossible to imagine. But the vague idea he could summon—of laughing and shoving at each other and a feeling of genuine affection—was…bizarre, but attractive. He had no idea why, but he could imagine feeling affection for Jeremy, if someday Jeremy might be his friend, and protectiveness, and even a little bit of pride, that they had managed to learn to get along. He knew how it would be without knowing, and it made his chest constrict with happiness at the idea, but disappointment too, because after all there was a reason that becoming Jeremy's friend would seem like an enormous accomplishment.

And an odd one at that, as he still had no idea why he would want Jeremy's friendship, when all he honestly knew that he enjoyed doing with the boy was looking at him, and what kind of friendship would that make?

The bell sang to send them home for the day and with the rest of the class Tyler jumped to his feet, following the others from the room. But in his mind he was somewhere in the future, on another sunny day, and he was walking next to Jeremy.

He wasn't certain whether they were holding hands. But he would guess that Jeremy's skin must be very warm and smooth, and when he thought about it he could almost feel it under his fingertips.


	5. I Could Be Stupid

**So. now that I've written one more frankly perplexing chapter for you all, whoever and however many you may be, it is time to return to a rather nasty little issue that was brought to my mind this evening when I was checking Gofugyourself and encountered some worrying images of our favorite little ladies wearing horrible things, because it is to be expected that young women who are payed to wear That Thing That Was Not A Scarf-Zombie-Tissue-Rose, Just Looked Like One, will then go out into the world and do much the same thing at various awards ceremonies. (And in many ways I sympathize with them: it must be very difficult, as Nina Dobrev, to wake up every morning to a closet which is apparently divided into Ye Olde Homestead Vampyre, her beloved Denim Body Tattoos, and then a small but frightening hanger entitled '60s Poofy Haired Nurse.)**

**But anyway, it brought me face to face once more with the tangly little subject of my personal peeve: Bonnie. Look, I sort of love Bonnie. She's hot, she's got a brain, and every now and then she lights the grill for a potential Damon-barbecue. But, and I'm sorry to say it, she is not black. No, wait, I didn't mean that, Bon-Bon. You can be whatever the heck your little heart desires.**

**What she is not is a box labeled BLACK that the producers can check off by the cast list. If you look at that girl and try to see a representative of black culture or social opinion, what you see is a girl who is trying too damn hard to curl and straighten hair that is screaming "I want to be frizzy!" And you know what? That is fine and dandy. Bonniecakes can be that girl if she wants too, with her styles that are designed to work on white-girl hair, cause you know what? She's white, too. She can groove with it and not look like she's trying to be something she isn't. But she can only do this if, looking at her, I feel that she isn't meant to be the Black Girl, a box that gets checked off in the name of equality. Because what she brings to the table is just more white culture. It's great culture, okay? But it wasn't designed by blacks or for blacks, so how is that representing blacks? **

**This is silly. Both socially, and because the CW is only doing it because they think making her look like a pretty white girl is the only way to make her look pretty, and that is simply ridiculous. Causeyou know what else? Black people have their own kind of hotness to show us all. Asians too. Hell, it's St. Patrick's Day and I'm annoying folks by celebrating my own heritage with a heavy brogue (insert it over all of this monologue), so let's throw in the Scots as well. I'm not saying that there is any big difference between people of different ethnicities—I'm not even getting into cultural fashion, because just because you've got a certain background doesn't mean you feel a connection with the culture your ancestors developed. **

**But you probably **_**do**_** share a couple of physical features with other people of your background, which other people may not. This is cool. Genetics happens, people. So maybe a style that looks good on, say, an Inuit, does not work on Kenyans. Visually, it just doesn't suit them, because odds are a Kenyan will be tallish while an Inuit will be small. They probably have to do very different things with their hair. With different shades of skin or eye colors there will probably be some colors that you shouldn't wear. Maybe it comes down to your nose, which is distinctively shaped or sized: maybe you shouldn't wear big earrings that draw attention to it. Maybe you should. The point is that we should all embrace whatever shape and color of clothing makes us look our very bestest, not our most white.**

**My once father lived in Nigeria, and told me about his friends with skin so black it looked near blue, and he said they looked like bits of the sky. You know the last time I saw someone like that in a movie? He was playing a Bond villain, and he had an accent that sounded like he was trying to speak with a potato on his tongue.**

**So I love B-Baby dearly. But I wish she didn't make me feel so god damned sad.**

**REAL STORY NOW. WOAH, REALLY? YES, REALLY, AND IT HAS WARNINGS: Cause Ty-dy likes the F word. So do I. Contains awkwardness and Matt.**

**Also, does Jeremy have a bicycle? Is it red? I'll send it to him for his birthday if he doesn't.**

**...**

It took Tyler a full minute to remember how to breathe. Five seconds in he realized why; ten seconds after that he noticed he was not where he had been at the minute's start. He wobbled then, nearly falling as the drive that had propelled him those first two steps faltered, but then his foot slammed down to redirect his body forward again, even faster.

Thirty seconds in, he knew that he was insane.

Then he saw that stupid, stupid brown hair reappear from behind the very last tree at the schoolyard's corner, and honestly nothing mattered more than getting from the steps to the road that Jeremy was riding down; not Matt behind him muttering something like "obviously not, then," in response to a question Tyler would have a better chance of guessing than remembering; not even breathing.

But his body remembered how to do it anyway. He turned at the corner and kept running, tearing down the sidewalk past small shops and the occasional more sedate corporate serf, who luckily just shook their heads and stepped quickly out of the way.

It felt like the air simply fell inside him as he chased along the path he was sure, he knew, that Jeremy had taken down the street on his bicycle. He thought he must be filling up with an endless supply of oxygen, because even after the minute, after two, three, his lungs voiced no protest, and yet he wasn't conscious of controlling any part of his body but his feet, pounding the pavement, and he couldn't even hear his breath over the staccato pump of his heartbeat in his ears. He might as well be on autopilot, his entire brain detached from its moorings and free to think about nothing but the intolerably brief sight of Jeremy somewhere ahead of him.

He had stepped out of the school doors beside Matt, already dreaming of his gloriously empty house and his quiet room, where he could sit he could sit beneath his window for hours undisturbed and sketch Jeremy. Tyler had never before welcomed the silence of his home with good grace, but now it seemed like the greatest gift in the world to be able to dissipate so completely at the end of every day. These days his well-worn CDs sat abandoned in the corner as he leaned back in the sunlight and let the sound of imagined laughter kiss his ears.

But then, there was Jeremy—there, at the very front of the adolescent exodus, an unmistakable figure already turning his bike onto the street. The real Jeremy, a nondescript shape of brown and grays that had all the gravity of a fragmenting star.

That same figure was ahead of him now, somewhere, and Tyler bit back an almost desperate curse that bubbled up inside his throat, because turning his head he still couldn't see where. And he needed to see, he—he ran faster. There wasn't a side street that Jeremy would have had reason to turn down, as the street here was closely lined with little shops, the barber's and the hardware store, with only alleys peaking out between them, so he must have simply set a hard pace for home.

And Tyler had to catch him fast, because he knew where the Gilbert's house was, relatively, but God only knew where geeks went after school, and Tyler needed to talk to him before whatever was stuffed inside his chest split open.

He swallowed hard, running flat out now, and it still felt like flying, but now in a craft that skipped and skimmed over the air currents, each collision jarring even though it didn't hurt. It was a flaring signal in his brain—get to Jeremy. Talk to Jeremy.

Or what? He didn't know. Where that possibility should exist his mind was turning up distinctly nothing. It wasn't just a need, he thought, feeling almost dizzy, his brain too deeply devoted to spare oxygen for normal thoughts. It was what was going to happen.

Odd things were fluttering through his imagination as his eyes, operating quite efficiently without any mental interference, scanned the road ahead. As he paused beneath the streetlight at the corner, surveying the cars scattered ahead and by him, something his preschool teacher had told his mother once wandered up to him.

_Tyler is a very tactile boy, you know,_ he had said, smiling._ He loves any of the toys with bright colors, and arranging things—one day he could be quite an artist._

The only time that subject had aired in front of the adult Lockwoods that he could remember. But the other part—his stupid obsession. It wasn't like he was aware he was a pretty physical guy; he played football, he hugged Matt, and when he had been taking art classes the teacher had been wonderful about letting him appropriate bits of the still-lives and play with them, even when it had driven more than a few of the stiffer students mad, because he memorized things best by touching.

He wanted to touch Jeremy. Just touch him, trace the other boy's cheek with his hand to see if that fucking lovely skin was really as smooth as it always looked. He'd only have to touch Jeremy, he thought, just memorize the way he felt, and Tyler was certain he would be able to limn a thousand times the detail he had seen in the boy before, mapping onto the paper not just an image but the complete essence of warmth and shape and the scent that had started to haunt him in the hallways whenever Jeremy brushed past.

All he had to do was…explain to Jeremy, talk to him, find him. He needed to be where Jeremy was, except that right now that appeared to be a bike he could make out weaving between pedestrian shoppers up ahead, and he was still barely past the corner onto Main Street.

Fucking hell, the guy could move. He didn't want to yell, wasn't even sure if Jeremy would hear, and if he did he might simply pretend not to. That was the way things were when they crossed paths in public. But he was certain, somehow, that if he could just get Jeremy alone for once it would be different. It would be the way he imagined it would be, because after all they had never been alone together—not without the ghosts leaning over them. It made it feel as though if he could reach that new ground everything would work out between them. He just needed to explain to Jeremy, and Jeremy would agree.

He just needed to touch him once—his stomach turned over, and the warmth that rose inside made him feel like purring.

Up ahead a van swerved suddenly, and another motorist poked his head out the window of his Volkswagen Beetle and shook his fist. In a glimmering of read, the bicycle and the hair above it disappeared.

Tyler stared. Fuck. Fuck—he couldn't have missed it. Had Jeremy turned the corner? Or slid between one of the last buildings to the parking spaces behind? He carried himself the rest of the way to the corner building without any air, looking all about him, down each of the last three alleys before the intersection and then down the cross street, but there was no red bicycle to be seen.

And, now that he thought about it, this wasn't even close to the direction someone would take to get to the Gilbert's house from school. Wherever Jeremy had been heading, Tyler had no hope of guessing now. If he knew how the idiot's brain worked, he wouldn't be busy chasing after him like a rogue football.

He wished he'd thought to play Jeremy-hunting with padding on, though. Feet burning and hopes quite badly bruised, Tyler shook his head and turned for home.

Falling in love shouldn't be quite so depressing.


	6. There Beside Me

**Ta da**.

**because you told me I had to. (I'm picking Lazerusnebel to blame for that, although I'm honestly no longer sure how many of the people I've talked to have done so. Say thanks to Lazerusnebel anyway, peoples, and if you said it too give yourself a pat on the back and a kiss from me, though that might be more difficult. Oh, and this is randomly dedicated to onecoldn'tsee because they basically said that I'm evil. Which I am. You honestly thought I was going to _end this_ back there? No bloody way. So a kiss to them too for accuracy, and even more to anybody else who feels like commenting and saying how much they hate me for this.)  
**

**Note: there will be no long note on this because I watched too many movies this weekend, and anything I write now will simply sidetrack until it ends up being...OMG INCEPTION. (If Green Eyed Cat reads this: yes, I ended up watching it twice in one day. I'm insane. I'm addicted. I'm in love.) We all know how much I enjoy stories which suffer from an absolute INABILITY TO PICK A MAIN CHARACTER. (You think it's Cobb? Bah. Count the minutes. For direct screen-time, Arthur wins hands down. He's always there! At about the hour and a half mark the cameramen apparently realize that A, they have no idea what's happening anymore because Christopher Nolan is the only one who has a script, and B, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has legs that are longer than the average human being is tall, (Side Note: have I mentioned I'm a theatrical costumer? Do you have any idea how much we LOVE people like him? The costume crews on his movies must never want to let him go) and so they just start filming him doing things that make him look like a very graceful frog in zero-gravity. The rest of the time, he's lurking in the background in quite a nice bomber jacket. _Then_ comes Cobb, although he gets pretty viciously bitch-slapped by Ariadne after the first hour. Which is good, because at that point I always start to wonder what the fuck has happened to Leonardo DiCaprio's hair.) So, while I'm sure you would all love to hear me go on and on (you think that was all I had to say about it? Bah.) about cinematography and mind-fucking montages and so on, I will settle for recreating the aforementioned effect myself, with, hopefully, half as amusing results. Though alas there will be no zero-gravity.  
**

**warnings: ... OMG IT'S JEREMY.**

"Oh my Lord above, boy. By the time you shelve those things they'll have grown into a tree."

Jeremy quickly shelved the bag of apples, not meeting the stare of the cashier, a surprisingly angelic-looking, wiry young man who leaned forward on the counter as though it, the rest of the small store, and Jeremy in it were simply barriers between him and his nearest smoking break. He'd rarely gotten bored enough to actually speak to Jeremy before.

Pushing his headphones back into his ears Jeremy nodded in diffident acknowledgement and turned to grab the next sack of vegetables from the crate of this week's local organic produce, and the other rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the door again. Jeremy sometimes wondered if his eyes hurt by the time he clocked out at the end of the day. They certainly would have reason to.

The next song clicked on and a wash of wailing guitar chords filled the space within his ears, successfully deadening any audible contact from the world outside his head.

He would have felt guiltier about having his iPod on during store hours, he thought, trying to locate the bin for kohlrabi. But no one was coming into the health food store at three in the afternoon, something he'd realized after a few days. He and Blondie had the dullest shift, right after school let out, which was either an act of self-preservation on the owner's part or sneaky planning on the young man's. It was the only one that Jeremy could make, and even then leaving school he had to hurry: but that was probably just as well, as if he owned a store he certainly would want either of them exposed to customers if he hoped to make any sales.

The shop had enough stumbling blocks to surmount already. It was small, packed tight between more confident buildings, and had the vague feel of a convenience store to its design because it had in fact been a convenience store before that business made enough to move to better zoning. The inside continued to look exactly like a convenience store, except that all the shelves had been—only slightly haphazardly—adapted into wooden bins, and buckets of all kinds of vegetables were piled about the place. The floors were still unforgiving linoleum, and they smelled a little like linoleum, too, and cleanser, if he had to spend to long bending close to scrub at them, but mostly the place smelled like sundried mud on the newest vegetables and good intentions, and sometimes like an apple that had been broken open by a drop. There were a surprisingly large number of faithful customers, in fact; intense, skinny people who made Jeremy a bit nervous. But they were still people, and people didn't come shopping at three o'clock.

That made it boring, but then boring was better than interesting when it was the bad kind of interesting, and the good kind, he had found, didn't come around all that often. He had only taken the job, really, because it kept him out of Elena's hair in the afternoons, and thus her stress-related panicking out of his life. But it was still bloody boring.

So he listened to a lot of music—he wouldn't have, probably, but being ignored with to full extent of his companion's ability made him a bit uncomfortable, and he listened to his favorite songs when he was nervous. Sometimes he found he could barely remember the lyrics to a song anymore, after he had listened to it so many times without paying attention and indifference had erased the words.

That made him pause: it felt very much like the way he had been feeling all of this last week. He was considering that, looking at the velvet sheen on the skin of one of the apples in his bag, when something caught his eye outside. He straightened, reaching up to slide his headphones down and still their tiny sounds.

What was Tyler doing here? he wondered. He was standing out on the street, smiling tiredly at some old lady passing by. She had waved at him when he came into sight, and now Jeremy watched as he chatted with her for a moment or two before waving her on and turning back to continue on his way.

But he didn't begin walking again: he simply paused, and Jeremy watched in a mixture of curiosity and disconnected bafflement as Tyler lowered his head to rub briefly at his dark eyes.

For a heartbeat Jeremy's mind refused simply to process this, except for the immediate and almost incomprehensible idea. Is he _crying?_ Jeremy's brain asked his eyes, hoping for a clue to the right reaction.

Then Tyler lifted his head, and Jeremy's body jerked when he turned to look about him and his eyes—perfectly clear and dry—briefly seemed about to connect with Jeremy's own. Over at the counter he heard the man make an exasperated sound, not even looking up from the magazine he'd pulled out.

Jeremy forced his ruffled feathers to settle and regained his composure. But Tyler's eyes, in the end, had slid back off of the shop windows without pausing to peer through and he set back off down the street, exiting the left side of the window at a brisk walk.

Jeremy gazed after him, and considered. What was Tyler doing here? Not that he didn't have the right to wander around his own town, Jeremy thought, trying to counter the automatic wave of suspicion that had risen at the idea of Tyler doing anything odd—or really anything at all. But it had only been twenty minutes since the end of school, fifteen since he'd arrived and clocked in here. That meant that, for Tyler to be coming back towards school from another direction, five minutes or more away on a bicycle—which Tyler didn't appear to have—he must have left school extraordinarily quickly and ran to whether he had been going.

Not that it was his business, but…what could make Tyler hurry like that, only for him to turn round a few minutes later and come back the other way?

"Seriously, kid, are you developing a relationship with that fruit crate or something?"

Jeremy stared at the cashier. "Do you want to do it for me, then?"

The man made a snapping noise, crunching a piece of gum he had found somewhere. "Not really."

"Good."

"Not my job. But it is yours, so…"

"Listen, do you mind?" Damn it, he wanted to know now. Tyler never ran for anything or anybody who wasn't carrying a football, he never walked like he was tired, and he never, ever, even _looked _like he was about to cry in the street.

"Not really. Something wrong with your friend?"

"What?" Jeremy turned to look properly at him. He gestured, pointing his should towards the window. "You were pretty hooked on something happening out streetside," he commented. "That the problem?"

Jeremy shook his head, feeling tired. "Oh. No. Not a friend."

"Mortal enemy? Some form of human being? Alien?"

"Could be any one of them," Jeremy muttered, still thinking. Tyler had been looking a bit tired all week, and it had made him feel odd: just like the comment he'd just made suddenly made him feel odd, guilty for falling into the stupid habit of calling Tyler an enemy. It wasn't like there was any point to that now, or even reason for it, really.

He had seen Tyler a couple of times during the week, and each time he had looked less and less like an old enemy and continued asshole and more like someone who needed their temperature taken and sent to bed for a solid eight hours of rest.

It was—well, it was disturbing, frankly, Jeremy thought. He had resolved to dismiss what was left of his old animosity, and yet it had been utterly surprising to see Tyler acting out of routine. He was the one who was supposed to change, Jeremy realized, but his plan had only been about changing his mind. It had never occurred to him that Tyler's actual behavior might be able to change. Jeremy had just wanted to accept that Tyler was a vaguely irritating but not wholly villainous bastard and move on from it, but now Tyler was messing up everything by making Jeremy uncertain of what, exactly, it was that he was supposed to accept about his personality.

For better or worse, dickish Tyler had been a constant in Jeremy's life. He found himself wondering briefly, now, what he was supposed to think about all this now, what he was supposed to _do—_and then he felt almost selfish, because the question that should take precedence was that of what on earth was wrong with Tyler.

Shouldn't Matt, or someone, have noticed there was something odd about the way Tyler was standing, even walking, these days if he had seen it? It wasn't like he even really knew the guy.

"He didn't look exactly happy," the blond at the counter opined. "More like…not at all happy."

"No," Jeremy said shortly, setting down the bag of apples. "He didn't."

It took him a minute to work out that the irritation he felt with Tyler's proper guardians' failure to fix this before it involved him felt a whole lot more like protectiveness.

**...**

**(You see what I did there? !Dialogue! So stop beating me up about not including it, okay folks? (^.^) )**

**(Yes, that is my emoticon for a Fruits Basket style smiling rice ball.)  
**

**ta**

**Jaime.  
**


	7. There To Guide Me

**someone told me today that Diana Wynne Jones just died, yesterday. I don't know if any of you know her. I don't know too much, and I haven't tried to learn, really. But years ago, maybe before I was even born, she wrote a rather odd little book called Year of The Griffin, and when I was about eleven years old and wandering in the library I found it, and I read it. And that book, and its companion, are the story of a young man named Blade, who in a lot of ways changed my life. I'm still not quite sure what I saw in him that sets him apart, but that young man has, over the years, been exactly the person I hope to one day be able to be. He's just plain a good guy, and I want to be like that, I think. And it's safe enough to say that I would not be writing this today, would not be in any way the person that I am, if I hadn't picked up that book and met him. I think, now, after having reread that book on the same day I wasn't aware she was dying, that without it there's a chance I might not even be alive right now. **

**And you know, until today I suppose I had never really believed that a piece of writing could truly inspire someone, or I didn't understand it, because I'd never really experienced something like that. But thinking it over, I think I can see for the first time the first time the real power that things like that have, because Blade might just be a character, but the idea of him may well have saved my life, for a while there, and he's certainly made the way I live. That's real power, that a writer has. So I've been thinking today, the day I learned I'd lost the woman who probably had as much to do with who I am as the one who's raised me, that I finally understand why I want to be able to tell my stories to the world, too. Not these ones, but my real ones, the ones about people like Blade who just might be able to do what I'm not sure I have the strength to, and change people's lives. That's the thing about a story, see. It can mean so many things to different people, and they can take the bits of it and shape them into what they need. Another human can't do that for them. I've hated people before, who tried to tell me the things about hope and living that that book has given me, but I've never hated that idea I found years ago.**

** I think Blade's always going to be the guy I'm in love with, just a little. He's like my brother, the twin I can carry around in my pocket-I've always hated that phrase, about books being friends you can carry. But the idea of Blade is, because he's not just a book any more, he's a part inside my head and I love him dearly. One day maybe I'll find him in another person. I hope I'll find him in me. And if I don't dedicate the stories I tell, at least I'll always try to keep in mind that the inspiration came from a woman who I never met, but who was Blade's mother, so she's almost mine. She gave me the first building block of my life, and I made it mine, and that's what I'm going to keep on doing.**

**For once I'm not sorry that I've rambled on this long. I think I need to tell at least whoever reads this what is in my head right now, because it means a lot to me, and maybe you, and I don't think I've really understood before what it feels like to be grateful.**

**and now the actual story. WARNINGS: SEVERELY ANTICLIMACTIC AFTER WHAT YOU JUST READ. sorry folks, Ty-dye ain't my character. If you want inspiration ask the show, or wait until I've gotten a bit more sleep. Also IMAGINARY SEX. yes. sort of. not really. you'll see, unless you want to keep your eyes closed for that bit.**

Tyler walked back to his car in the school parking lot, blowing on his knuckles. He'd bruised them against a wall that had happened to be in his way—but then, he'd probably bruised the wall as well, as he hadn't been in a mood to spare it anything.

Which was odd, as he wasn't actually angry. Or, he didn't feel angry; he felt horrible, and anger was certainly a part of that, but at the same time it was far, far too simple an emotion to encompass just how badly his head currently felt. He opened the car door with his healthier hand and got inside, resisting the urge to simply set his forehead down on the wheel. Instead, he drove for home.

His mother was there, for a wonder, or her car at least was parked in the gravel drive. Tyler parked too and got out, and stood for a moment looking at the sun resting brightly over the trees, but he saw no movement in the gardens or on the patio, and there wasn't a sound from inside the house.

Shrugging, Tyler pocketed his keys and went up the front steps. If she was here she was somewhere in her own rooms, and all that that entailed meant he wouldn't have to encounter her. Moving quietly, just in case, he headed straight for his room. He had learned to walk quite naturally, over the years, without making any kind of sound. It was automatic camouflage in a house too silent to be a home.

Once he was sitting on his bed, lifting one foot to pull off his sneakers, he realized he was hungry. There was no way he was going into the kitchen now, and chance running into anyone, even the housekeeper.

And somehow that, falling on top of everything that had built up already, was the bit that pushed him over. He let his foot go, almost robotically slowly, and fell backwards into the pillows, the world around him crunching itself into a swirl of disregarded pieces.

Tyler wasn't sure he had ever felt quite this uncomfortable, like a ship that knew where it belonged but had lost its anchor, and was being slowly pushed from harbor by the indomitable will of waves.

He had thought about boys before, of course—the of course sounded horrible in his head. It had been part of his life, thinking things he couldn't stop because they were as natural as breathing. He'd learned to live with that by now, that they were part of him, but he had never stopped wishing that he as a whole could be different. It was odd, being able to accept part of yourself but not yourself; he didn't like that, didn't like it because it was the way he was.

The thoughts were one of the few things, really, that were relatively inoffensive, or at least compared to other things because they didn't come up every day. No one else had seen them, none of his family had had reason to tell him why they made him worthless. And at least they had felt nice.

Tyler closed his eyes. So yes, he had looked at other boys, thought about…other boys, and it had been years now since he was fourteen and he had last felt guilty for it. He'd felt he probably should be, often enough, but had never quite been able to find the will to. He mostly just hadn't thought about it. It had never hurt.

But this hurt, God, this fucking hurt. His heart felt like it was caving inwards, nothing to fill it even though it was starving, for so many things he could barely understand them all.

He wanted to see Jeremy. He was hungry, he was angry. His hand hurt. He wanted to do a whole lot more than look at Jeremy—and he shouldn't, said a tiny part of Tyler, but he really, really didn't fucking care, because every time he thought about seeing Jeremy smile he felt like he might be on top of the world.

Because Jeremy never smiled when Tyler was there, so for him to see it would mean he would have _made_ Jeremy smile, and Tyler knew himself enough to know that once he had realized he'd never get approval from someone, the thought of getting it became a drug.

And Jeremy was…Jeremy.

And so very, very fucking beautiful.

Tyler opened his eyes again, because keeping them closed hurt; and he kept at arms length the idea that they were probably going to feel just as burned and aching no matter what he did. Turning his head to gaze out the window he tucked one hand under his cheek to support it, and let his eyes adjust automatically to the difference made by the sun.

The window was open a few inches, again—he didn't know why he didn't close it, when the scent of his mother's lavender itched at his temper so—and a breeze that was too warm to be cool but felt so compared to the backdrop of the day drifted in.

The last of his stolen apples was sitting on the windowsill, where he had stashed it the night before. Tyler stared at it for a minute. He had been planning on eating it, but he must have simply forgotten. He grabbed it.

And then he just sat there, half upright, with it sitting softly in his palm. He looked at it.

It seemed so very stupid, suddenly, that something as simple as a red green apple could look so wonderful. A curved little shape almost bursting with the promise of water inside it—you could nearly forget an apple had so much water in it until your throat was begging for it, but an apple was just water, really, and thirst gave water a voice like an angel's. And an apple was sugar, too, water that tasted like honey, and skin that felt soft under the pads of his fingers, and reflected bits of the sun.

But you never thought about that. An apple was such an ordinary thing, just like an other, and no one looked at ordinary things and thought they were extraordinary. Not until you were starving for one thing in particular, and then you really saw it, and thought that it was the most wonderful thing. But it was just like anything else, really.

He could have picked anything. He knew that. But his mind wouldn't let go of Jeremy, and he wasn't even certain why. It wasn't like he was any more beautiful than anyone else. But hunger made him look that way.

Tyler ate the apple. He bit down hard, misjudging the firmness of it, or maybe how much damage his mouth would do, and the feeling of the flesh giving in made him pull backwards for a moment, frozen, before he pulled a piece away. He closed his eyes and swallowed, and tried not to think that it tasted very good.

He let himself fall back into the clouds of pillows, and raised the apple to his mouth again. This time he just poked out his tongue to lick at it, and it wasn't his fault when the explosion of taste that came with what would have otherwise have been just a touch made him think of Jeremy, because God, he was certain touching Jeremy would be like that, a tremor that sent waves crashing through all of him as if his senses were islands to be swamped.

And Tyler couldn't help it if when he pulled the apple closer to his mouth he was wondering whether the darkness in Jeremy's mouth might be just as smooth and damp as the juice on an apple's skin. He finished the apple very quickly.

The pulp felt odd, rattling around in his otherwise empty stomach—because, or course, he'd forgotten to eat all day, and he probably wouldn't be doing so again soon if he wanted to stay sane, with food now on the list of apparently untouchable, _Jeremy_-inducing, subjects. But then, probably anything would feel odd right now.

Tyler groaned. He couldn't fucking help this. All he wanted was to _see_ Jeremy, to wrap his arms around him and breathe in warmth and Jeremy-smell; and god damn it, he didn't even know what that would be like, just that he wanted to learn. He wanted to learn all of that.

He wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Jeremy, very softly, and feel his breath against his mouth—Tyler couldn't keep from licking his lips. They were far drier than he suddenly felt they were supposed to be. He tried to recreate the experience he'd never had, hoping somehow to pull that scent from the air and identify it, but his body was rapidly losing interest in imagining such gentle touches. He turned over onto his side, pinning one hand beneath his head again, and his breath was speeding up as he let himself imagine Jeremy so very _warm_ against him, and his mouth open, and all the things Tyler could dream up that involved lips and teeth and tongues, and breath so hot that it felt like it was baking more than burning him, making something new.

Tyler forced his mind to back off a little, and considered things, left hand twitching on his hip. It wasn't exactly a complicated situation. But a few of his self-preserving instincts—or at least the not actively destructive ones—were calling out that this maybe wasn't what he needed. He needed to just get over Jeremy, and stop moping after him before this really became pathetic.

Or, he could keep it real.

His fingers pulled at the seam of his jeans, and then he shook his head, as much as he could, and let them slide down to brush over the pressure against his zipper. His other hand clenched immediately into the pillow under his cheek, and he pulled the tag down, quickly. He wasn't entirely hard yet, which was something of a relief, frankly, but that changed simply enough when he let his fingers trail down from the tip to his stomach and back again, and then he didn't have a choice but to wrap his fingers fully round himself and moan just a little.

Which was quite nice, on the whole, but not close to half of what he was craving. Tyler let his lashes part again, because somehow he couldn't quite keep them closed, and turned his head lazily to look down at the door, and the foot of the bed. And then that seemed right, because it was too easy to imagine Jeremy standing there, the sun on his cheekbones and his jaw, and that was enough to make Tyler gasp again, because he wanted to touch that cheek, and run his fingers over the skin and then press kisses there. And his stupid hair, that probably wasn't really all that soft, but would catch about his fingers when he pulled them through it and give him a reason to keep them there.

Tyler realized he was panting, and he closed his eyes again, trying to catch his breath for a moment. But his body seemed too fond of starving, eager to deny itself of air if what it got was thoughts of Jeremy, and he couldn't really make himself slow down when all he wanted was more.

It was too easy to look back at Imaginary Jeremy if he couldn't have the real one, because fuck, he needed this, and even if it wasn't a thousandth of the proper one his dream was so very beautiful. And it didn't matter if he couldn't catch Jeremy, if he could imagine him standing there, sitting down on the edge of the bed, his fingers taking the place of Tyler's own—that made him moan.

Jeremy's fingers—God, Jeremy had always had such perfect, long fingers—sliding under the hem of his own shirt and lifting it away, which was good, because Tyler was suddenly fairly sure it was illegal for Jeremy to cover up all that skin. He was pretty sure he remembered a rule like that, or he hoped some senator could be persuaded to make one.

It was so much easier to forget about everything but the dream of Jeremy; to forget that it was a dream at all, because that knowledge hurt, and he didn't want to hurt right now. Because it hurt to remember that Jeremy might press himself close to Tyler's chest and let him touch him in all the ways that he can dream of, and gasp kisses into his hair.

But that wasn't really Jeremy at all.

Tyler lay there for a long time after he had cleaned up, and contemplated quite how much he was going to hate waking up tomorrow for school, and seeing the Jeremy who hated him again.

He was looking forward to it, though.

**ta. hey, think about it.**

**night, darlings.  
**


	8. In My Way

**I'd really been planning on being my normal, slouchy self for a while longer (napping, watching new _Being Human _episodes, doing some homework if I felt adventurous) but then, it was brought to my attention (facebook, you darling invention) that the birthday of The Green Eyed Cat approacheth! i.e., it's tomorrow. I still get to say 'tomorrow' because it's only 11 at night where I live, even thought it's already 'today' for her. So, as, as the aforementioned time difference suggests, it is rather difficult for me to do much else for her, I have written for her the conversation that I promised.**

**Yup. Jeremy and Tyler TALK TO EACH OTHER. For, like, a minute. The rest, however, is Jeremy and Matt talking about Tyler, so. That's nearly as, if not more, cute.**

**WARNINGS: Matt and Jeremy are professionally clueless. There's Matt-bashing? I don't know; I feel like Jeremy's a bit of a meanie. But if so, blame him, not me. Matt is my homie (even if he is a bit dumb. IGNORE THAT.) I have the feeling there's a swearword somewhere in there, but... Maybe Matt's sheep took it (please don't ask). Checking...okay. Can't see it. And Jeremy just might be guilty of being a bit of a dweeb. Not overtly, just a little.**

**NOTE: BLAME LADY GAGA. I feel like when I started this story it was actually intended to be dramatic and sort of _deep_ and stuff. Then I stayed up too late without any dinner and listened to 'Alejandro' too many times (According to the warning on the bottle, adults and children over the age of twelve should listen to it no more than twice in a lifetime, and a whole lot less than on repeat for half an hour cause I forgot) and the video of Adam Lambert's 'For Your Entertainment', which practically is its own warning label (Warning: May contain a pretty gay guy in a corset and a distinctly inappropriate snake...what the hell, that's why you're watching this music video.) And then everything just became a kind of stew of cracky gay goodness, and here we are. Sigh. I suppose I could just make the next one-the one I implied this one would be, where Tyler and Jeremy actually talk (read: argue and glower)-be full of Ty-dye angsting about life and how sexy Jeremy is, and generally lust/pining. How does that plan sound?**

**...  
**

Matt did not seem to understand the nature of quests, Jeremy decided. Cheifly that, when a person was on one, one did not ask him _why_. The whole purpose of calling it a quest was so one wouldn't be required to think much about it—heroes never did—and when one was always being questioned about that it made it very difficult to remain in a thought-free state.

Or at least, that was why Jeremy had decided to call it one. A decision he was now regretting a little, he reflected, pushing part of his hair up off his forehead and glowering at the heat in the hall. It felt a bit silly, for one, even if he made sure not to voice the word in front of Matt.

"Look," he said again, settling himself against the neighbor's locker while Matt bent to fish in his. "I just thought he's been, you know. Weird, lately." He rolled his eyes in self-disgust at that, but luckily Matt wasn't looking.

Matt considered, either the sentence or his textbooks. "What's 'weird' with Tyler?"

The man had a point. Jeremy considered. "Just, well. Stressed, or something?"

He'd said it purposely trying to sound like Elena's 'troubled' little brother, hoping to convince Matt everything was normal, but at the same time he winced, realizing that he sounded like a troubled little brother. Which was sort of like waving a red cloak in front of Matt's hero-complex bull.

As expected, Matt straightened, frowning over at him. "Are the two of you going at it again?" he asked, sounding as usual as though he was unsure what to worry over first.

Jeremy tried not to sigh. "No," he said, and was pleased that, while it still came out a bit too high, at least it was closer to bratty than to showing the real worry behind it. That, Matt would have probably translated into meaning Jeremy _was_ worried about the fights starting again. On the other hand, that would be better than him realizing Jeremy was beginning to think he was insane.

Matt looked at him for a long minute anyway, and Jeremy brooded over the apparent death of trust in Mystic Falls. So he wasn't always honest; that didn't mean that everyone should start being suspicious of everything he said. It stung, especially when he was, in fact, telling the truth.

"Alright," Matt said, apropos of his own apparent internal debate. Doubt over, he simply shrugged, vague again in a manner Jeremy considered to be classic Matt. "I haven't really noticed," he commented, then stiffened, making Jeremy twitch.

Shaking his head, Matt dropped the wrong book he had picked up and leaned in to look for the right one again. Jeremy couldn't see, but he silently wondered whether Matt's locker could possibly be as fascinating as it seemed, or whether its owner was merely the single most obtuse individual on the planet.

Merely part of the quest, he reminded himself. All one needed was to be patient.

"No," Matt said suddenly, and for an instant Jeremy stiffened, convinced he was somehow responding to his thoughts. But when his eyes met Matt's, Matt was staring straight at him, frowning not at Jeremy but apparently at himself. "I didn't mean that," Matt told him, sounding rather surprised. "He has been odd. Didn't even think about it." He paused, and focused on Jeremy properly again, apparently reconsidering him. "You saw, though. Have the two of you been getting on _better_, then?"

Jeremy blinked, acclimating once again to Matt's apparent intent not to tell Jeremy anything without getting as much as he gave. "No," he said hastily. Then again, "No. I, um. Haven't seen him much, just—" he shrugged, and then swallowed wrong and had to cough. "Noticed it. And thought I'd…ask you. About it."

That was lame, but Matt didn't have to look like he thought it was: again with the trust, or rather without it. It was lame, but it was the truth.

Correction: it was mostly truth. He hadn't looked at Tyler in weeks, until last Tuesday Tyler had come in looking like the living dead, and Jeremy had ended up like…this.

Matt shrugged. "It's weird," he commented, successfully distracted again by worrying over Tyler. "He'd been…weird, yeah, like he's thinking about something else all the time. Or he's sick, maybe, but he hasn't said…"

More like it. Jeremy uncrossed his arms, suddenly and unaccountably nervous. "Sick? You think he has a bug or something?"

A shameless, information-grubbing whore.

Matt shook his head a little, thinking. "Not really—I don't know. He doesn't handle colds well, he always says something. But Ty's not been exactly…awake, lately. Like he's dreaming, distracted or something, I guess, more than anything."

He was doing that thing, Jeremy reflected. The one where Matt seemed to be under the impression that he wasn't a wholly single-minded individual and acted as though he was still letting Tyler out to dry. Which Jeremy was sure he was, and certain Tyler had broken the bank on certain kinds of shit when it came to Matt's otherwise impressive tolerance. But in the end, Matt simply didn't have what it took to be cold to anyone, and when he wasn't paying attention the habitual, paper-cut out pleasant personality came back again, because it might be simple but it was simply the way he was. Matt was a shepherd, Jeremy reflected, and anything sufficiently fuzzy was welcome among his flock, however ungainly it might be, and after a few days Matt would forget there had ever been a difference between the wolf pups and the sheep.

He probably shouldn't take up subsistence farming or politics, but otherwise Jeremy rather wished Matt could go back to being content with his boringness, and admit to himself that he was worrying about Tyler. And also, by pure coincidence, tell Jeremy what he needed to know.

Jeremy crossed his arms again, waiting. "Distracted?"

"Yeah." Matt peered at him, looking suddenly unhappy. It might not be nice, but Jeremy applauded himself for being able to reduce Matt to this. Having a friend's problems pointed out to him by an outside party was obviously shaking him a little. "He hasn't said anything, just sometimes he's…gone. You know." Matt gestured. "Up there. He'll space out in the middle of a conversation, sometimes. 'S not normal." He paused. "Well, he's doing it more than normal. And…it's less like he's not listening, you know? I think he actually might not be able to hear me." Matt looked fairly gutted by now.

Not nice. But someone should worry about Tyler, after all.

Jeremy wasn't sure where that thought came from, or whether what he was doing technically counted as looking out for Tyler.

He was just on a quest, he decided. It wasn't anything to do with him personally.

"So, he's got a hearing problem," he suggested, leaning back and trying to sound sarcastic enough to make Matt elaborate.

Matt thought about that. "I don't think so," he said, vaguely.

Jeremy really might be forced to kill himself.

He elected to drop the veneer of not being a bit weird instead, and leaned in towards Matt to talk seriously. "Okay, look. I think—"

"Do you know if Elena'd lend me her English notes, Jeremy?" Matt asked him.

Jeremy stopped moving. "Um," he said, and thought very hard about not committing murder. It was okay to kill an ogre guarding the treasure though, wasn't it?

"Austen," Matt said, holding the little book up to demonstrate. Jeremy fixed on it like a trained, confused, dog. "I don't really get Elizabeth," Matt said sadly. "I mean, is she trying to make a joke?"

"I can lend you my copy," Tyler said, from a few feet behind Jeremy. Jeremy wondered whether anyone else would be able to tell that he'd just had a heart attack, and tried to be discreet. Mostly he ended up trying to melt into a stranger's closed locker.

"It has notes some kid years back left in it," Tyler continued, sounding slightly uncomfortable as he went on. Jeremy dodged his eyes, but was fairly sure that Tyler must be looking at him skeptically. He certainly would be. He let out a breath, and made himself say goodbye to the locker again.

"Hey," Matt said cheerfully, as Jeremy took a baby step away from the metal. He shuffled around in his binders and found a paper to pull out. "I've got the print-out for the project too, you wanted to copy it?"

"Yeah," Tyler said, standing with his hands in his sweatshirt pockets in a way that made Jeremy sure that's the only reason he's here. But Matt didn't say anything about Tyler having an issue with Matt—so why was Tyler acting like he wanted to live.

"'Kay," Matt said. "Here then—get it back to me?" Tyler nodded, looking like someone had attached strings to his body and was moving it like a puppet. "Mmh, and Jeremy, ask, would you?" Matt added, and they made Jeremy nod too. He looked Matt over, trying to find the clue that must be hidden somewhere in his innocent baby blues, that would tell Jeremy who, exactly, Jeremy would be asking, as Elena's notes weren't apparently needed. But then, Matt might well have forgotten that. He'd forgotten where he'd stashed the clue, too, and Jeremy didn't see it anywhere.

"So, see you," Tyler said, and turned to stalk off down the hall. Jeremy saw the flicker of unhappiness on Matt's face, and then he pushed himself all the way from the locker and turned, too.

"I'll see you, too," he said quickly, and added in a mutter, "And I'll ask. Someone."

"Right then," Matt said, smiling. Then, as Jeremy hurried off down the hall after Tyler's sweatshirt, he called after him "Hey! Jeremy. We need to talk—I want to know why—"

Jeremy had pulled up beside Tyler, though, and felt free to ignore him. "Hey, Tyler," he said.

Tyler said nothing, but Jeremy noticed with a jolt that he looked suddenly as though he was going to be sick.

"Yeah," he said.

"You have lunch now?"

"Yeah," Tyler said again. Jeremy nodded to himself. Half of an hour, then, to find a reasonable excuse to interrogate him. He could do that.

Tyler, at least, didn't ask questions. It was easier to deal with people who respected the quest.

Then _he_ didn't need to think about it, either.

**...**

**NOTE 2: _Being Human _is a very good fucking show.**

**Also: Cat, it appears that Matt is currently all on his lonesome in this story. He has thus volunteered, and sends you kisses too.**

**But mostly they're from James.**

**Ta, all.  
**


	9. I Could Be Weak

**Yes. I am a GOD. Of...ridiculous stupidly inconsistent updating? Look, I really am sorry. At least I DID it, which for a while there it was looking like I wouldn't, so there's that.  
**

**Anyway, I wrote this (finally) while listening to Rihanna and Lady Gaga sing Love the Way You Lie Part II and Bad Romance (blame Pandora's shuffling, I don't know why it does the things it does) on repeat (okay blame my habit of always hitting repeat no matter what I'm listening to)-which, because I _know _you all care about my personal life, happen to have been the songs that were playing last week, when I met a _very _nice girl at a dance and shenanigans occurred, which means I am actually quite fond of them now- So this really isn't my fault. So you know.  
**

**Oh, and also (I love doing these)**

**WARNING: We enter here the much-feared land known as MULTIPERSPECTIVE TIME LOOP FROM WHICH NOT EVEN ANGST CAN ESCAPE (which doesn't actually mean much because it's a fairly weighty plot-element). Because I LOVE them. Thou are warned. **

**Say that with the 'ed', by the way, for proper effect.  
**

_...  
_

Tyler also didn't answer questions. Or respond to hints. Or prompts.

Or generally, in any way, volunteer information about himself without making the person on the other end of the attempted conversation suffer for it. Jeremy remembered about that bit, too, as they turned around the corner, he trying awkwardly to match his steps to Tyler's.

Maybe he should try saying something, his hind-brain suggested, breaking the desperate buzz of static where other mental functions had instituted radio silence. Jeremy shook his head, startled, and looked down at his hands. Maybe. But it certainly felt like he was suffering already, and he hadn't done anything. His hands were hot and clammy at the same time, and his fingers slipped over the surface of his palms as he tried to subtly rub each one dry.

Fuck Tyler. Couldn't this count as sufficient discomfort to make the boy spill already? Nervously, he checked Tyler's face, hoping to find assistance there. A clue. His kingdom for a clue…

Tyler didn't look at him. Jeremy bit at his lip, and when that hurt he let it go and stopped walking.

A beat later Tyler noticed and slowed too, turning, and Jeremy's heart did a horribly embarrassing little backflip when Tyler faced him, considering Jeremy with flat black eyes.

"Um," said Jeremy. And kicked himself, very hard, in the shins for that. "Tyler, I…"

Tyler's eyes flickered at his name. So he responded to aural input, at least.

"I," Jeremy repeated. "That is, Matt and I were talking."

He admired Tyler's self-restraint, at least. "Yeah," Tyler said simple. "I noticed."

A—big—part of Jeremy ruffled its feathers at the tone he used, but it was overwhelmed by that pesky part, somewhere at the back, which was usually ignored but had developed a surprising voice in affairs recently. And that part, he found when he prodded it to speak, had just…melted.

What the fuck? Jeremy blinked. It couldn't—he needed that bit! Well, maybe it was annoying, but these last few days it had lead him about by the nose enough that he was starting to rely on it. It was what wanted him to be here, after all, and now the second it achieved its goal and got him with a dozen feet of Tyler, it just left him?

He swallowed, and, other options exhausted, managed to locate his courage. He pulled it out of the box and dusted it, and he decided that it would have to do. "Yeah," he said, and then; "About you. So listen, can we talk somewhere?"

That gave Tyler pause. "Uh," he said. "Yeah, I suppose." He crossed his arms, and Jeremy was sure that he would rather do anything else, including crush Jeremy's skull with a tire iron, but for the moment he was complying.

They looked at each other for a moment, standing in the middle of the hall, and then Tyler shook himself. Jeremy startled at the movement, and realized that he had, once again, simply forgotten about talking.

"Do you want to go to the cafeteria?" Tyler asked, sounding as though he really might get out an iron if he had to do so. Jeremy shook his head.

"No. Just…um." He didn't grab Tyler's hand, because that would be just weird, and it wasn't like he wanted to. He made one of those unconscious pulling gestures instead, indicating what he found to be a worrying level of comfort with the possibility of maybe doing more, and headed back around the corner and towards another, where there was a place by the water fountains that was hidden from the view of the main passage. Tyler followed him without commenting or arguing, and Jeremy was awfully grateful to him for it.

When they reached the fountains Tyler took up station, leaning against the wall beside them with his arms crossed, and looked at him. Jeremy swallowed, wondering how such a factually relaxed posture could appear so…predatory. He was also more than a little irritated that Tyler had claimed the wall, because he wasn't sure where he was supposed to do with his own body now. In the end he simply stood, facing Tyler—well, facing Tyler if he were looking Tyler, but the water fountains were really quite fascinating today—and pushed his feet apart into a sturdy fighter's stance, balancing on his toes.

Here goes…quite a lot, he thought, and said, "He—_we—_we're worried about you. You've been…weird lately, and we wanted you to know, um, that you can talk to us. And we'll help, and if you're sick, you really should be at home resting, and if it's something else, you should tell Matt. Because he's worried. And I'm supposed to ask you, about that. If anything's wrong."

That went well, he decided, and maybe it was the lack of oxygen, but he was actually quite pleased. He hadn't fainted, at least, and all of the points were there. Maybe not in order.

Tyler, on the other hand, looked as though he very well might collapse, once he managed to work his way through what Jeremy had said. Jeremy saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard, and reflected, vaguely, on the lengthy subject of how pale Tyler's skin always was. It was such a pretty color, objectively, but he wasn't sure it was necessarily a healthy one for a human to be.

"Have you decided I'm an alcoholic now, or are we going with mentally disturbed?" Tyler asked. Jeremy, who had been rocking slowly back onto his heels, wobbled.

"What?"

"I just said," Tyler said. "This is an intervention, apparently. So, what are you two intervening, and why the fuck did Matt send you?"

"He didn't," Jeremy said, unsure how to reply. "I mean, this isn't an intervention. I really am asking what's wrong."

Tyler snorted. For the first time in a while, Jeremy realized, he hated him.

"Yeah right."

"Yeah, right," Jeremy snapped. His voice was rising, and he tried to page his self-control again. "I want to know."

"What's wrong," Tyler said, rolling his eyes, "is that, apparently, my best friend thinks I'm about to have some kind of fucking break down. And he's enlisted some weird kind of sidekick, but that's a different problem."

"We don't think you're going to have a break down," Jeremy said, though it actually made a fair amount of sense. "And I'm not a sidekick. I'm…um."

Tyler did the eye thing again. God, he wanted to punch him. He shifted, wishing there was a chair so he could sit on his hands.

"Right," Tyler said, and Jeremy could have sworn Tyler looked at his twitching hands and shook his head. He shifted, and for a moment Jeremy was convinced that it was the familiar tensing before Tyler threw a punch at him, and something like lightning ran all up and down him. But then Tyler simply pushed himself away from the wall, and the lightning in Jeremy exploded in a flutter of cinders.

The back of his brain pushed forward and urgent word. He said, "Please."

And Tyler stopped. One of his hands was still on the wall and it tensed, almost clinging there as its owner stared at him, nothing but that hand signaling a nevertheless unmistakable need for support.

"What?" he said, and maybe it was Jeremy, but it sounded very fucking much like a whisper. Tyler shook his head to clear out clouds, and spoke louder. "Uh, what did you say?"

"Please don't go," Jeremy continued, obligingly, and he'd have said it again, and again if he had to, because now that he'd tried the words again he found there was a sea of them washing about inside. "Please. Just…just listen, for a minute, and don't get mad, or…punch me, please, that would be nice, because I'm not here to tell you what's wrong, I just want to ask."

There was a long, long moment where Tyler simply gazed at him, and his eyes were very dark. Jeremy felt giddy, looking back at them, and part of that was relief that he could get the words out, and some was because Tyler wasn't walking away. A little bit was Tyler's lips, parted like he was going to speak, and another part was the wobble that made his knees want to bend, and the warmth that embarrassment and gladness brought. And part, too, were those eyes right on him; finally, Jeremy thought to himself, exactly where they, and he, belonged.

**...**

**And, because it's nearly exams, I will of course pick now to probably start being punctual again and probably have the next bit (Time loop time loop time loop (This is my imitation of Matt Smith, who I think might actually be my long lost twin)) within a few days.**

**Or maybe...not.  
**


	10. I Could Be Senseless

** This is, as I promised, really really similar to the last chapter-though new stuff does happen. I actually recommend than you set up another tab or window with the previous chapter next to this one, so you can compare and bitch about all of the infuriating little word tricks I did. **

**Have fun.  
**

**...  
**

It wasn't fair.

Tyler reflected on a lot of things as he followed Jeremy down the hallway, from the fact that he really was fairly hungry to the mesmerizing awareness of Jeremy in front of him, and how easy it would be to stop his forward motion by pulling him _back, _into him—and damn, he wasn't exactly _hungry_ anymore. But that was the thought that glittered like silver, under all of the rippling things, so he seized on that conclusion.

It wasn't fair that Jeremy was such good fodder for obsession. It wasn't fair that he was so fucking weak that he'd become obsessed.

Or that, now, he was so very much in love with it.

He picked up on Jeremy's intention and stopped beside the fountains, leaning back against the wall so he could listen. He'd give Jeremy a chance to say whatever the hell he'd come to say, at least, Tyler thought. He wasn't exactly sure what that was going to be, beyond a baseline expectation not to like it, but somehow part of him also wanted to defend Jeremy, convinced that whatever this would be couldn't be too bad. He was the dick here, not Jeremy, he was fairly sure of that now.

And part of him had decided it really couldn't care less, and had decided it was simply going to lean back and look at Jeremy.

Jeremy looked at him, now, and Tyler blinked several times, slowly, as though he was trying to rein in his eyes before they raced too fast into devouring images of Jeremy. He was lucky, he realized: he'd never even thought, before, about how dangerous it was to look into those wide brown eyes. Now he did know—but then, he'd always had a bit of a thing for danger.

But Jeremy always had to spoil things, and this time he did it particularly well, by not only _not_ obliging Tyler by standing closer, so that Tyler could grab him, but having to open his mouth and start talking, too. Tyler decided that he did not particularly like it when Jeremy did that—at least not when Jeremy was also looking like he'd rather die than do it, because that spelled nothing sweet for either of them.

He especially didn't like it when what Jeremy said was, "We're worried about you."

Well, that was remarkably not good.

And yet, as he had come to expect over the years, it did not stop there. Every word made Tyler grit his teeth harder in irritation—and, at the same time, near awe. "You've been weird lately, and we wanted you to know, um, that you can talk to us, and we'll help. And if you're sick, you really should be at home resting; and if it's something else, you should tell Matt, because he's worried. And I'm supposed to ask you about that—if anything's wrong."

Both of them were silent for a moment, and then Tyler saw Jeremy flinch when he finally looked up at him. It registered with him, vaguely, that the expression on his face must be quite something, to have made Jeremy revert to flinching, but that thought was subsumed quite quickly by pure resentment.

It wasn't fair, he thought, not that Jeremy had flinched at the way he was glaring, but just that Jeremy flinched around him at all. That he was, apparently, terrified even when trying to help Tyler.

Because Jeremy was scared of him, but looking out for him anyway: that fucking hurt. It meant that Jeremy was doing just what he'd do for anyone.

Jeremy was a nice person.

A very, very awkward, rather rude, fucking cruel nice person, but a person motivated by impersonal nicety alone. That was not even close to fair.

He was also, Tyler thought, rubbing over his knuckles with his thumb, really fucking off base. And that pissed him off particularly, because it was a bit much for Jeremy to drive home the fact that he didn't know Tyler at all. That at least Tyler could blame him for.

He swallowed, biting back all but the words that would best express his thoughts, a hard lump weighing on the back of his tongue. "Have you decided I'm an alcoholic now, or are we going with mentally disturbed?" Tyler asked, his voice rumbling lower than usually in his throat.

Jeremy, who had been rocking slowly back onto his heels, wobbled. He found his center again and lifted his chin, eyes wide and catching at Tyler's. Tyler shook off the way they sizzled over his skin, and tightened his arms about his chest.

"What?" Jeremy said, almost breathless.

"I just said," Tyler told him. "This is an intervention, apparently. So, what are you two intervening, and why the fuck did Matt send you?"

Why did you come, he wanted to ask. No way Matt was stupid enough to get in his way, even if he noticed Tyler was on the path to self-destruction—he knew that Tyler knew the way, there and back again. Nor, frankly, was he clever enough to think of sending someone else to face the wrath of Tyler for him. Jeremy sent himself, just like usual, and Tyler wanted to know why, because he would spend eternity in a hell of his own making rather than let Jeremy pity him.

At least, he thought, as Jeremy's teeth dug into his lower lip and the other boy sighed a little, he'd rather that than have Jeremy pity him for something nonexistent, or because he was somehow forcing his problems to Jeremy's attention. If Jeremy ever felt like actually giving a fuck about him, Tyler was pretty sure he'd do anything to keep that.

"He didn't," Jeremy said. "I mean, this isn't an intervention. I really am asking what's wrong."

Tyler blinked at him. "Yeah right."

And Jeremy practically glared at him. "Yeah, right." His voice had risen, and Tyler actually shifted back when he heard it, uncomfortable with how _much_ he might be able to hear in that, if he let himself. "I want to know."

"What's wrong," Tyler told him, rolling his eyes, "is that, apparently, my best friend thinks I'm about to have some kind of fucking break down. And he's enlisted some weird kind of sidekick, but that's a different problem."

"We don't think you're going to have a break down," Jeremy said, though Tyler noted that his face wasn't exactly a convincing portrait of denial when he said it. "And I'm not a sidekick. I'm…um."

Yeah, whatever. Tyler didn't particularly care, but he was pleased with the way that Jeremy shifted, uncomfortable and offended, because he wanted to make Jeremy spill. Jeremy brought himself here, and he had to have had a reason, something that made him step up into Tyler's issues. Even if it was just niceness, he had noticed something about Tyler change: so what was it, and why was it Jeremy who saw?

He pulled back a flicker of hope and pressed its wings to the ground—whatever it was, it wasn't going to be anything that meant that Jeremy might love him, too. The world wasn't fair. It certainly wasn't slanted in his favour.

Suddenly he was exhausted, as though all the thoughts that Jeremy had sent racing through him were far too heavy to lift. He looked up at the ceiling, then down at his hands, which clenched and tried to lift their burden, and he was too tired so he decided to put it down. "Right," he said, and uncrossed his arms, pushing himself away from the wall. He didn't need Jeremy to worry about him, and somewhere inside he was actually sorry, because for whatever reason he had interfered with Jeremy's life. But it wasn't like this Jeremy—the real Jeremy—had anything to do with him, so Tyler would make sure it didn't happen again.

No more pining. No more…acting weird. No more _being _weird, except in the privacy of his own home, because Jeremy was being polite, really. Jeremy was his own person, and that person wasn't his.

Hot lunch was almost over. He'd have to hurry if he wanted something decent, but he could probably give up on class, and wait and get a bagel.

He really was leaving. Except Jeremy clenched his hands and looked at him, and said, "Please."

Tyler stopped. "What?" he said, and although he tried his hardest it came out sounding very fucking much like a whisper. Tyler shook his head to clear out clouds, and spoke louder. "Uh, what did you say?"

"Please don't go," Jeremy continued, gazing straight at him, and little children and the sun outside had nothing on his face for brilliance and unvarnished _honesty. _"Please. Just listen for a minute, and don't get mad or punch me, please—that would be nice—because I'm not here to tell you what's wrong. I just want to ask."

There was a long, long moment where Tyler could only gaze at him, wanting the instant to go on forever, and wanting to see what came after it, too. Even if he had wanted to leave, even if he had tried to pull away, he didn't think he could have. Not when Jeremy was looking at him that way, and it suddenly seemed like any misunderstanding between them couldn't possibly matter, because Jeremy was rude and stupid and awkward and irritating, and he damn neared glowed with being himself. He'd mesmerized himself with thinking that he didn't know the real Jeremy enough to care about him.

And fuck, was he wrong.

"There's nothing wrong with me," he said, quietly and when Jeremy tried to speak he shook his head. "I'm an absolute dick and I've been in a horrible mood, but I'm not sick, and you don't need to worry. I'll be fine."

That was when Jeremy punched him. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he said, as Tyler reached up to touch his jaw. Jeremy shook out his hand and then glanced back at Tyler, who was still trying to remember why he'd forgotten about that frown. It was the one that made Jeremy look like he was nearly crying—and also the one that meant he was about to slug someone. Then his breath slipped away and he couldn't get it back, because Jeremy had lifted his hand again to brush the left side of Tyler's collarbone, and then lowered it. He couldn't help his eyes sliding half closed, and was glad that it prevented him from being overpowered when Jeremy leaned in closer, and his measured voice broke over Tyler's skin, letting loose the anger in it. "I do not fucking want for you to tell me that, Tyler," he said. "I want you to tell me what is wrong, because I want to know."

Tyler just sighed. Jeremy's breath smelled like apples.

...

**Okay! We are so very, very close here, people. 2 or 3 chapters to the end of this (lengthy mindboggling infuriating sleep depriving) monstrosity which I have become so fond of.**

**As such, I am officially opening the polls (even more so than they already sort of technically were)!  
**

**See, I am lazy. I have way too many ideas in my head for me to do, or want to do, things like categorize or prioritize them. But, it has occurred to me, perhaps I do not need to do these things. Perhaps I can be really pathetic and rely on all of you. Basically, if you have any thoughts on what pairing you want me to write next, or a facet of the plot of even just a title, tell me about it in your review and I will look them over and maybe write a fic for whoever's I see last before I pass out because why am I doing this during final exams? Anyway.**

**Please, more than already, review, because this is your chance to make my life crazier, and I am sure none of you want to miss that. **


	11. I Could Be Cold

**Tallyho. **

**I'm back. And chatty. With news!  
**

**Two more chapters left, one of which I already have written, and no, it is not the one that comes net, because that would be just silly.**

**Also, there is this thing Teen Wolf, for which there are these silly looking ads everywhere online, and the only response I can come up with is DUDE. I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS SHOW. IT LOOKS TERRIBLE. We are talking Vampire Diaries Episode One ALL THE TIME, as far as I can tell, which means that it will be awesome, because the only thing I love more than terrible 'supernatural' TV shows is...well, Supernatural and Lucky Charms, especially combined, but ignore that. And as bad TV goes, there are several points in this show's favor:**

**The special effects look like they'll be terrible. **

**It's about werewolves. (I.e.,the special effects are GUARANTEED to be terrible.)**

**The main kid is pretty built. (Actually, the kid looks a whole lot like my cousin Ellery except with slightly less Jewish hair, which means I'll have to feel fond of him no matter how stupid he ends up being. Which will probably be very stupid, because OH MY GOD, it's a Romeo and Juliet thing except her daddy wants to off him and oh Lord that is just so DONE. Couldn't you at least have made it accurate and given her a bad ass werewolf hunter older brother to be Tybalt? For me? Fine. I shall be forced to write him in. Hell, maybe I'll make an actually accurate adaptation of R+J with the Vampire Diaries for my next fic, just for kicks. Although As You Like It is more fun...)  
**

**THEY DO THAT THING WHERE THEY GET ALL THEIR INFORMATION IN FIVE SECONDS OFF OF GOOGLE, BLATANTLY, IN THE TRAILER. Aren't you supposed to be teaching little kiddies not to do that? A whole generation of Americans might look to this show for guidance, and boy, will that generation of Americans be stupid.  
**

**Also blatantly in the trailer, this kid (he probably has a name but I really do not care) sort of molests some guy (who has just told him that elevating his heart rate will cause him to turn into a werewolf, which, given that this is a teenage boy here, should lead to some kinky hijinks) against a wall**

**And then, very blatantly, is the dialogue: "You and me, Scot? (Dude, you're name is Scot? Since when?) We're brothers. The bite is a gift.(This is the dude what bit him, as they keep going on and on about, so he's pretty much guaranteed to be sketchy but I'm so glad he's not shying from the role.)" "I don't want it." "You will." Oh, do you have to make my life as a fanficer so EASY?  
**

**And last but not least, the icing on my cake of gleeful joy over this particular sartorial horror which I will so relish dissecting, (no, you don't dissect cakes, but if you'll find that the cake part actually refers only to my joy, so whatever this thing is I can dissect it) their tagline seriously looks like this:**

_**"One bite unleashes his wild side - can he control his urges?" **_

**Did that SEEM like a good idea when they did it? I mean, it's not that it's sketchy. It's that it's just BAD.**

**Sigh, sigh. Further bulletins as events warrant.  
**

**...**

Jeremy had always known he had a gift for overlooking things. He certainly used it—it was a gift, it really was. Not for the big things always; _both your parents are dead_, that was hard not to remember. But sometimes it was nice to be blind, and hear just what the little voice of comfort whispered. _You don't have a 'problem'. Your sister doesn't hate you, there isn't a big test you need to worry about._

_There's nothing wrong with Vicky._

It helped, to be able to simply not see so many details of his far too detailed life. But even Jeremy had no idea how he could have overlooked…well. Tyler…being Tyler, apparently.

He had always known Tyler shorter than he was—at least, for the three wonderful years now that that had been true—but, what with Tyler practically constituting a tornado on two legs when it came to fighting, it had never made half the difference he used to wish it would. Now, it meant that he could look _down_ at Tyler, not in a metaphorical or conflict related way, but actually down on Tyler's face, because he had let the punch carry him far enough to nearly press Tyler into the wall. Tyler, who had finally learned not to attack someone who had him pinned, was staying ominously still.

He had thought to pull away, but then Tyler had closed his eyes. And all of a sudden Jeremy's insides where a jungle gym for sparks of electricity, as he watched Tyler's dark lashes rise and fall. He could see the minute pulse that fluttered through his eyelids, and somehow that sight made Jeremy long to reach out and touch the place. There was something visceral and habitual about a pulse that demanded that he be able to feel as well as see it, and he forcibly restrained his hand from rising, or cupping Tyler's cheek where it was starting to flush with bruising. Tyler's face was at the perfect height for him to be able to cradle it, to slide his thumbs over his cheekbones, and fuck, that was the kind of thought that should require a lot of drugs to be thought anywhere near Tyler, but it wouldn't go away. He wanted to do it.

He pulled back a bit—mentally and physically, but again, he kept staring at the flicker under Tyler's pale skin, and in the end that only made him conscious of every other place they nearly touched, and the slow soft thumping he could feel in Tyler's chest.

Do not kiss your arch nemesis, Jeremy told himself. That would be…stupid.

But…

"Um," he said, and bit his tongue. That hurt, and he was grateful for the flicker of cold pain as a distraction—it steered him away from thoughts of what, exactly, he could be doing with it right now. He pushed those down, because while Tyler might be suffering his proximity, for a wonder, he certainly would not be as calm about having Jeremy's mouth or tongue anywhere near his.

Which, counterproductively, brought his mind around to a contemplation of Tyler's lips and what was behind them, and what it would, theoretically, be like to…

He bit his tongue again, hard. "Ow."

Tyler shifted, blinking his eyes almost lazily open again. "Are you okay?" he asked quietly, looking—all right, just a few inches—up at Jeremy.

Jeremy nodded his head, or maybe he shook it, he couldn't really tell anymore. He was too busy holding his tongue, and taking in every aspect of the expression Tyler had on too. It might not be _sweet_, but it was miles closer than Jeremy thought was possible.

Forget about Tyler's build—how could he possibly not have noticed this? Suddenly, Jeremy felt guilty. He pushed himself backwards, putting his hands on the wall on either side of Tyler so that he leaned there rather than on him. "I'm sorry," he told him.

Tyler stared at him, completely lost. "What?"

"I shouldn't be after you about your issues when I'm the messed up one, and that's the only reason that I notice." Jeremy drew back a step and pulled his arms in, rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the other. There was a reasonably distance between them, and he was mostly certain that he was the only one who looked down at it unhappily. "Sorry," he said again.

Tyler was suddenly properly attentive again and as fierce as usual, pushing himself off the wall with his elbows as he frowned at Jeremy, who flinched. "What are you talking about?" Tyler asked, very fucking slowly.

Jeremy wanted to step back, but once he did he couldn't see what to do next, so he dismissed it as a delaying tactic and returned his foot to the ground. "I've been worried about you," he said, crossing his arms. There was no use in doing something to distract himself from what had to be done when he'd end up having to do it anyway. "I got Matt started. Well. I have no idea what happens in Matt's head, and I don't want to. I was worried because you've been looking pale lately, and twitchy, and—more—unsociable, and you haven't been eating pro—well, from the looks of it, at all. So."

Tyler stared at him. "Yes," he said. "I know."

"You know?" Jeremy blinked.

"Yes! That means 'you're right', I concede your point, whatever. You're right. Maybe. I don't know." Tyler scowled at him, though it seemed far more thoughtful than usual, and there wasn't much of a bite to it, as though he were frowning at the problem itself now. Jeremy wondered how he had never noticed before that Tyler had different brands of scowl. It seemed remarkably appropriate. Still, the main difference was probably that it didn't appear to be directed at him.

"I don't see why you're now apologizing for saying something that might be right," Tyler continued, now quite definitely glaring at him again. He left of the 'for once', though, for which Jeremy was grateful.

"That's not what I'm apologizing for," Jeremy said. "I'm apologizing because, well, I thought—just now, and maybe I am, because you're being very vague—that I was wrong, and I realized if I were I wouldn't know because the only reason I thought something was wrong was probably because I don't know what normal is like, for you, if you ever are normal, because I only just started giving a damn about what you do very recently."

Tyler blinked at him, blankly.

"Well, I always cared when you were punching me," he amended.

"And…how has that changed?" Tyler asked.

Jeremy readjusted his crossed arms, and decided that the new position was even more awkward, but then so was standing there, and talking, and probably the air he breathed. He hoped it was a chemical in the air making him this way, and not something he himself was breathing out, slowly poisoning the atmosphere, because if Tyler worked out that Jeremy was the source of what was making he, too, act so oddly, he would probably kill Jeremy later.

After he was done with all of the soulful gazes and questions and, now that Jeremy thought of it, sort of heavy breathing that he was doing, which quite frankly had to be chemically induced and suddenly Jeremy hoped that it _was_ him doing it, because he could put up with his own being ridiculous if Tyler would stay like this, too.

"Um, because I think I maybe haven't been very fair to you," he said. "And I only realized that recently. And once I realized, I, um, I think I realized that I like you."

They both thought about that.

"More than I thought, anyway," Jeremy said, and blushed. And then Tyler punched him.

Jeremy felt his fist skid almost gently—for a Tyler punch—past his cheekbone, rather than, as was Tyler's usual preference, _through _it, turning his head with the shock. He swore, almost out of habit, and reached up towards his cheek. Except somehow the fist that went past his face and the arm that was attached to it ended up wrapping around him, and his hand was blocked on its way up by Tyler's shoulder. And then Tyler's body, and then Tyler was hugging him, his face pressed against Jeremy's bruising cheek. And Jeremy hugged him back, one arm falling over Tyler's back while the other hovered, because Tyler was _hugging_ him, but on the other hand _Tyler_ was hugging him, and he couldn't decide which word deserved emphasis any more, much less what kind it should be.

"Tyler?" he asked after a minute, in which Tyler had done absolutely nothing, and more disturbingly done nothing violent, except for breathing on him, which somehow felt like it should count as an assault. "Um. Tyler?"

"Yeah," Tyler responded, and Jeremy wished to hell he knew whatever question he had just answered. Then Tyler pulled his head back, just enough to look at Jeremy as a distinguishable face, and said it again. "Yeah?"

Jeremy licked his lips, hesitantly. "Tyler, you just hit me."

"Yeah."

"Would you mind telling me why?"

"Can we, please, not talk about it?" Tyler asked, turning his head, and Jeremy truly didn't know whether or not to press the issue, because God, Tyler was speaking very nearly against his mouth, and that was a mind-boggling experience.

So he kissed Tyler, which was simply mind-blowing, and meant he didn't have to be conscious of all the confusion anymore.

He hadn't realized he was quite this suicidal before.

**...**

**Oh, come on. Doesn't anyone care what I right next? Sigh. I will be forced to scrounge for ideas elsewhere...  
**


	12. I Could Be Ruthless

**Ahem. I am an angel. Do not try to deny this. **

**Actually, what I am is very slow. The personally favorable explanation is that I have final exams in two days and have been studying; the honest one is that I have gotten addicted to Glee (I can't help it, it's five days until Green Lantern comes out, and if I can't have ridiculous action movies I have to settle for ridiculous teen dramadies.) I do like Glee, though, (even though I sort of hate the spoiled-baby-girl thing Lea Michele does with her voice-I'm not denying she can sing, I just don't like female singers who sound like that) mostly because I love the random side characters, like Terry's sister's crazy children or Other Asian Guy (I feel bad about the fact that I think of him as that now, but I've forgotten his name. Actually, mostly, I call him Chan Chan, because he looks exactly like this guy I know, who is not actually named Chan Chan either but I can't ever remember his first name (Chan **_**is**_** his last name, to my credit. I think.) and anyway he's pretty adorably twinky (purple skinny jeans and a pink and blue striped sweater sized for someone twice his height), and also looks about four, so "Chan Chan" is pretty appropriate.) Anyway, I'm fond of this new, older Chan Chan, because he wears suspenders and never talks. While there is a satisfying about of suspender-wearing on this show, thanks to Kevin McHale, there are times when I kind of long for more not-talking. There's also the other inexplicable dancing football dude, who simply doesn't have a personality. I think he might be an extra who wandered on and the director got confused. Maybe he can borrow some spare personality from Rachel, although then he might just end up wearing twee skirts and perving on Finn, which would probably make Chan Chan jealous, and then there would have to be some kind of Dancing Dude Showdown and I so, so want for that to happen. **

**I am now torn between writing that and my earlier idea, in which Finn and Mercedes switch bodies. Or the other, where Kurt is a gangster and Brittany and Santana are his bodyguards. Or possibly the three of them are some kind of Twilight-style vampire coven which resides at McKinley (but not on sunny days!)( No, seriously, that's why Kurt does so much skin care, it's makeup to hide the sparkles) and, I don't know, maybe Rachel wants entrance (by the way, Kurt obviously turned S+B because, while he was planning on simply snacking, he wanted to know where they got their new Louboutins). Or Finn is a member of a rival vamp family, with whom there is CONFLICT. (Mercedes, of course, is a werewolf. Or maybe that's Artie.) Shenanigans ensue.**

**Any of this sounding good, darlings? Or do you just think I should probably be committed to an institution with a lot of straitjackets? **

**Alright, alright, the actual story is coming. Fittingly, looking for inspiration, I wrote this listening to The Pussycat Doll's Buttons and No Air. So this happened. It was unpreventable. Just one more after this, which I will probably post tomorrow morning.**

**Note: you may think I used the word echo wrong but I did not. I mean it in a way that anyone who lives in a hilly place will understand and others may not: how when something in the distance is approaching, like a train in the next valley, the first thing you hear is an echo of it, before it's close enough for you to hear the actual sound. The sound goes up and bounces off the mountains, rattling around between them until it reaches where you are. The real sound doesn't make it, and you won't hear that til much later. So you know. (When fireworks go off here in Vermont you can hear it to the end of forever. It's knocked books off of my shelves before.) Keep this in mind. You probably wouldn't even have noticed the line if I didn't say this. **

...

Tyler had never been a particularly well-mannered child, to his mother's great despair, or whatever similar emotion she affected once actually feelings became too much trouble. But even if he had no manners he always played by the rules of a fair fight, a much simpler but no less rigid set of commandments that his father had taught him to favor. Possibly he took that kind of obedience to heart better because it had been his father, or perhaps, as Tyler had reflected once or twice, he would have shared his father's attitude anyway, because they had always been similar, in a mutually destructive sort of way. They both had always liked things simple.

And it was simple; there were some things you did and some things you never, not in desperation, thought of, and it seemed to Tyler that even if people disliked you everything usually turned out right if you followed the rules. People wouldn't like him much even if he thought to be polite, Tyler suspected, but it didn't really matter.

One of the things that wasn't done was thinking about what not following the rules would be like, because the rules worked, which meant if Tyler didn't follow them, he wouldn't be certain of what would happen anymore. And then things could turn out badly, so Tyler didn't think about that. Except that it was hard not to think about not following the rules, right then, when he was at least partially participating in a truly massive breaking of them, which Jeremy had just committed.

By Tyler's way of thinking, no one should know anybody else's dirty secrets. You shouldn't try to dig through words for anything more than what was set before you, and more than that if you did end up with a bit of someone's privacy the mental space it occupied should be erased immediately, because having it opened the door to using it. That was unfair, and in Tyler's mind it wasn't even a possibility.

Which was why Jeremy's decision to molest him confused him quite a bit. For a moment, in fact, he didn't even believe it had happened, because Jeremy's mouth didn't touch him anywhere except a fantasy and last time he had checked he was in school and not particularly drunk. But then damn, he had never imagined Jeremy's lips being quite so full or his mouth tasting like—possibly fortified—apple cider, which was actually quite silly because, he realized suddenly, that was his favorite beverage in the entire world. Whatever had just happened, what he was kissing—because he was, it wasn't his fault; of course he'd kiss back when Jeremy's mouth just appeared against his, and tasting so fucking nice—the mouth was very definitely real.

And then, fuck, maybe it was his fault, because it suddenly occurred to him out of the pleasant hot fog that he must have been the one to lean forward, and he must have been the one to kiss Jeremy, because that was the only way that this was happening. He'd somehow blocked that moment of moving forward, the first taste of Jeremy's breath before their lips brushed from his mind, perhaps from shock, and that pissed him off, because he wanted to be able to remember that, even if a momentary loss of consciousness was probably the only way that, right now, he'd be doing this. And that was worth anything.

Even though Tyler had thought, just a few seconds ago, that he was trying so hard to keep his face by Jeremy's cheek and nothing more. He knew he wasn't as strong as he should be, but he wished he didn't always have to prove himself right.

The moment was over, and Jeremy pulled away. But he didn't move away; his mouth only opened, letting out what must have been a gasp against Tyler's skin before Tyler had the chance to react. And then Jeremy's lips were back against his and Tyler couldn't possibly have instigated that, because the only way he could be responsible for making Jeremy bite his lower lip, and hard, was some kind of psychic ability. If he'd had any, he would have used well before then and for much bigger things, although it was actually hard to think of anything he'd like Jeremy to be doing more than that at the moment, especially when Jeremy did it again, and then broke the kiss just enough to allow him to lick very gently over the spot. The brush of his tongue moved along Tyler's lip, and then between them, and then it occurred to Tyler that he wasn't holding onto Jeremy nearly tightly enough because he might be about to fall over.

That danger was easily prevented by grabbing onto Jeremy's hips, with the additional advantage that Jeremy made a little hiccupping sound and moved closer to assist him. Unfortunately, it exponentially increased the possibility of Tyler simply pulling them both onto the floor, which hadn't been a danger until Tyler suddenly realized it could be, at which point it became impossible to get it out of his head.

Jeremy had kissed him. Jeremy was kissing him. A minute had passed—either painfully quickly or thrillingly warm and slow—and Jeremy was still kissing him, and Tyler was coming to the realization that this was a continuing process; unbelievably, it wasn't about to end. He wasn't looking back on events, or forward to them, but experiencing them as he thought. It was like a state of being, like being happy or sad—or more like the difference between the way he was now and how he had been three years ago, or as a little kid. Everything subjective seemed different, and everything was subjective. There was something incredibly elating about finding himself in a whole new kind of being, except that his brain was informing him that thinking, never his favorite activity, was a ridiculous thing to be doing right now, and it was shutting down effective immediately in order to save him from himself.

He lifted one of his hands to Jeremy's shoulder, feeling the bone and trying to pull Jeremy down a bit closer to him. When Jeremy did, though, pushing Tyler's mouth open as though he was trying to merge them into a single person, he realized that that wasn't really a comfortable place to leave it. For one thing, he was coming dangerously close to climbing Jeremy already, and his self-esteem didn't find that acceptable.

Also, if he tried to hang off Jeremy's shoulders they might fall over and while the floor would be lovely, especially with Jeremy under him, it might make Jeremy decide to stop kissing him, and only Tyler made those kind of decisions.

So he moved his hands back down to the tops of Jeremy's jeans, and then gravity and an admittedly strong sense of curiosity helped them find the back pockets, and he slipped his hands into them and used the new leverage to adjust Jeremy's position. Jeremy obliged, making a noise that sounded, just a little bit, like a mewl.

Everything was fine, essentially, until Jeremy drew back. He was breathing hard, and maybe Tyler was too, but he could barely tell. Resting his forehead against Jeremy's cheek, he swallowed—hard, to clear the numbing taste of cider—and listened to the shushing sound of Jeremy's breath go past his ear.

"Okay," he said. "What the fuck?"

He could feel Jeremy stiffen. His hands, he remembered, were still in his back pockets, and Tyler considered moving them. But he didn't want to startle Jeremy—and he didn't want to move them. It was easier to simply avoid responding, and stay leaning on Jeremy.

Jeremy breathed out again, quickly. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely as loud as Tyler's had been. "I wasn't, um, I'm sorry. I just thought it would be a good idea to do that." Seeming satisfied that Tyler wasn't going to tear away, one of Jeremy's hands rose and pressed against his hair. Tyler turned his head a little, not quite pressing into it.

"Why?" he asked.

The hand tensed, and then softened. Then Jeremy quickly drew it away. "I wanted to."

"Oh," Tyler said. He closed his eyes, and thought. "Why?"

"Because. Um." Jeremy made another sighing sound, this time in exasperation. With Tyler's eyes closed that was all Jeremy was, air, particularly warm around him and the sound of it beside his ear. He could imagine that sound as movement, a disturbance in the normal air, and now that he had experienced it he knew the taste of it, too.

Breath that carried Jeremy on it, in the shape of words, and Tyler had the sound of Jeremy's voice too as Jeremy swore. "I hate this," he whispered into Tyler's ear. Tyler hummed in response. "I keep on trying and I can't even talk in front of you.

Tyler considered that, and the warmth of Jeremy's neck not far from his face. "Yeah?"

Jeremy nodded. "Yeah."

"Mm."

Jeremy shifted again. "Is that a good sound or a bad sound?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Tyler thought Jeremy sounded close to being pissed. Or no. That was scared.

"I don't know. What. I'm not really thinking about it right now."

Another breath, another sound, tiny but like the first distant echo of panic. "What are you thinking about?"

Tyler opened his eyes, though he didn't move away, and he could only see a piece of Jeremy's skin and a corner of his bruised mouth. "You just kissed me," he pointed out.

Jeremy hiccupped as though he was about to laugh, or maybe cry. "I know."

Finally, Tyler drew back a little, just to study Jeremy's face. He didn't know why, but for the first time that sound made him almost afraid. "So maybe I'm thinking about that," he said, and wished that there were some way he could keep his arms around Jeremy gentle and still make sure he never moved away.

Jeremy looked at him, and his brown eyes were so big and innocent that Tyler was actually worried for him, given that this was the boy who had just effectively assaulted him. "Is that a bad thing?" Jeremy asked. "I mean, was it a bad thing, what I did? I know I shouldn't have, but."

"No," Tyler said. "Not, uh, if you wanted to."

"I wanted to," Jeremy whispered.

"Uh. Okay. I guess that would make sense." Tyler swallowed, taking a breath of air that smelled like teenage boy and school hallways and apples, simultaneous terrifying and grounding him, or maybe just grounding him in terror.

But it was a comfortable terror, safe and warm.

"Would you want me to do it, too? If…I wanted to?" he tried.

Jeremy frowned, as if he was searching it over very thoroughly for hidden meanings. "What?"

"Would—"

"No, I know. Sorry. And yes. A lot. Yes. If—"

Tyler kissed him. Jeremy, responding enthusiastically, made a noise that was nearly a sob and crushed Tyler into the wall. Tyler didn't particularly appreciate the bruising, but fortunately for him Jeremy had crushed their mouths together at the same time, and he thought it expedient not to complain.

He did, eventually, decide that they needed some time to breath, or Jeremy might faint, and he didn't know if he could handle that on top of everything right now. He certainly didn't think he could handle having to stop kissing. It took Jeremy, who really was looking a bit muzzy from air deprivation, a moment to understand, and Tyler had to press a hand to his shoulder to reassure him that it was, hopefully, only a brief interlude. Jeremy seemed to get it then, everything, and Tyler watched unable to look away as all the worry and tension seemed to melt off of him. He didn't look sad anymore, or even breathless.

Slowly, Jeremy began to smile, and Tyler stood dazzled as the boy he loved beamed sunshine down the dusty hallway.

**ta ta. See ya'll tomorrow.**

**P.S.: do you hate me for telling you that's not the ending? Hmm? Just a little bit? Goodie.**

**(Looking back at this a year later, it makes me sad, because oh my god, there was a time I didn't hate **_**Glee.**_** There was a time when it was **_**good**_**. And then….I think I'm going to go cry now. Cry and watch Torchwood, because that at least is reliably….well, Torchwood.)**


	13. Just Like You

**The fact is, I wouldn't be me if I didn't lie about when I was going to post the next chapter. Sorry.**

**This is, however, the last time I will be lying to you for a few days at least, when I will hopefully be ready with one of the two new Jyler stories I have been considering-one of them suggested to me by onecoldn'tsee, who I'm sure you all know is awesome. Until then, I want to remark on the fact that _all_ of you are awesome (not just the people who have been nice enough to talk to me about this story. Everyone who reads it, and all your relatives...I don't really care. I'm in a good mood right now, partly because I am, yet again, not one hundred percent conscious.)**

**I also figure it's time to acknowledge the fact that THIS STORY'S TITLE DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. You thought the ending might somehow make it all clear? Ha. No. Look, I seriously flipped a coin to choose the song I'd take the title from. From there on, I DID base each chapter, really existentially, on a line from the song, but sadly as a whole it doesn't really work. One day I will write the story that I was sort of thinking this would be before it totally turned out not to work, something about Tyler growing up and his dickish dad and repression and so on.**

**Also, I've totally been thinking of Tyler as a werewolf in this and it has in no way appeared or affected anything ever. What can I say, he's only a dog three days a month, and this story takes, what, a week? Feel free to think he's just an ordinary jerk.  
**

**Confession time over. Later, people.  
**

**...**

It wasn't the first time that Tyler cut his last class, not by a long shot, but it was the first time he did it with Jeremy. For something other a mutually-required trip to the nurse's, anyway.

This time they went outside and found an appropriate tree, somewhere between when Jeremy always went with his druggie friends and the steps where Tyler sat, and lay on the sun gold grass just become the circle of its shadow's influence.

Tyler closed his eyes against the sunlight, then tipped his head to the side, making it land against the top of Jeremy's, which he hadn't realized was so close. He thought about reaching out to fit an arm around Jeremy, but the warmth of the sun already seemed to have melted him into the ground and the two of them together, so he was content just to lie there, maybe for the very first time. The sky overhead was a draped over them like a blanket of impossible lightness, that threatened to lift them both into its depths if they stayed there to long. Tyler, at least, was happy to. He didn't need speak or move, and his hands lay still, the tips of his fingers pressed into the dark earth.

After a moment Jeremy sat up, though. Tyler could hear and feel the short grass rustle, and Jeremy's shadow fell across his shoulder with those of a handful of leaves. He waited for a moment, but after moving so suddenly Jeremy did nothing, so he simply hummed and let his body relax.

Another moment, and Tyler felt something land and tickle his face. Eyes still closed, he reached up vaguely and withdrew a few pieces of grass from his lashes. Another rested on his cheek.

"Don't be a dick," he told Jeremy, half asleep.

Jeremy laughed. Then he tossed another piece of grass, and pinned Tyler's hand to the ground so he could do what he had obviously wanted, and smooth the greenery from Tyler's hair himself. He didn't move away again when he was done.

"Do you have any paper?" he asked, very quietly.

"No." Tyler said it harshly, but he had his own fingers around Jeremy's wrist, discouraging him from taking them away, and he thoroughly planned on staying there for a very long time. "Why would I? Why do you want it?"

"Because," Jeremy said, laughing at the sunlight. "I want to draw you, just like that."


	14. Part II

And they lived happily ever after, except for all the times they tried to kill each other. But neither of them ever succeeded, so it still counts.

...

**Alright, I'm continuing this. Merry Whatever, people, and thanks to the anonymous personage referring to themselves as LADYGAGALOVESLASHERLUST, for A, that name, and B, a really, really long list of songs, displaying an impressive and slightly scary understanding of the stuff I listen to when I write fanfic. So, we'll see what my brain comes up with for you. **


	15. Tonight: Smiling and Talking

**Part II- I Like It Like That/ Secret, You and Me**

**(It depends on how I'm feeling.) (Based on Seal It With A Kiss, by Britney Spears. Because.)  
**

** Hello, children! The Holiday Season is upon us, and we all know what that means! **

** It means spending time with your family, who you hate, which means you are bitter and surly and probably drink too much and then your mother asks you _why_ you didn't marry Robert (the one who cheated on you), and have cute children like your sister, and then it's the Christmas party, and there's _mistletoe_, and the acquaintance that you simply _lust_** **after, you really do (you'd say "secretly", but you'd let them have you on the nearest available flat surface in no time flat, no matter how many people are watching, and you're pretty sure everybody but them-maybe them? Oh, _God_-knows about it, so...) has that really _stupid_, cliche, romantic comedy moment that would be absolutely _perfect _if it was with you. But it isn't; it's with Angela, your slutty not-really-friend, and _is five minutes too early to leave already? _No, it isn't, so you do-except that that's when Robert enters. With his date. You spill something all down your front when you see them, and _now_ your crush is looking at you, and by now even another one of your mother's lectures, or your father's stories about work, or an hour decorating with your bitchy cousins, or your nephew, Todd-real name, Satan-would be appealing.  
**

** You hate the world, basically, and specifically the part of it that's your life, and _especially_ any mention of the holidays. And so you spend them in your lair, reading fanfiction! Or writing it, in my case.**

** That's right, little children-and I feel weirder calling you that after that little story thing, and given that I'm about to announce that I'm giving you Holiday-themed porn for Christmas. Um. Darlings!-Just Like You will be continuing, as my way of celebrating my first year of writing fanfiction, and all the wonderful things that have happened, and most particularly, all of you. I've been through a lot of bad stuff this year, and you lot have helped me through it by being incredibly sweet and kind to me in little ways, and cheering me up whenever it brought me down. So I'm doing what little I can to repay you: I'm giving you Jyler. In suits. At Yuletide. _And with the Mature Content you've been asking for since Chapter Two! (Well, not yet. But there will be.)_**

** Merry Something, people.**

**...  
**

**1. Tonight/Smiling and Talking**

There were a million things that Tyler knew he should be doing; ranging from the official list his mother had issued—_checking up on the floral arrangements_—to the more private but equally important—_hiding any and all sketches of his boyfriend, naked, before Carol Lockwood's love of cleaning led her into her son's room. _

Because that could get ugly, very quickly. On the other hand, so could absolutely everything about the upcoming week of yuletide parties, whether the final straw be one last conversation with the insane woman Mrs. Lockwood always hired to do the centerpieces, one moment of unfortunate, alcohol-induced honesty in front of his father's slimeball cronies, or a room with him and way too many other people and Jeremy Gilbert in one of his very nicely-fitted suits. Tyler was betting on that last one, honestly-probably factored by all of the others and leading inevitably to his long-anticipated mental breakdown.

And that was why he wasn't doing anything that he should be doing, and had decided to hide instead. It was quite pleasant, with the winter sunlight falling squarely on the little corner at a bend of the stairs where he had tucked himself away, and he let his head slip back and his eyes drift closed. He hadn't wanted to get out of bed at all that morning, and it almost felt like being back there. Sleep deprivation wasn't making interactions with his mother and her party minions any easier, but he probably shouldn't give in and fall asleep, in case anyone came looking for him. That was Jeremy's fault too—most things were—because Jeremy was an obnoxious, sixteen year-old child who thought sending suggestive messages was amusing, rather than what it actually was, which was torture. He had tried explaining that to him, but Jeremy hadn't gotten it. He _had_ offered to stop doing it, which Tyler had refused immediately, because that would be infinitely worse.

So he was lurking on the landing, trying to catch up on enough rest to feel—closer to—human without actually falling asleep and falling off his perch.

"Tyler?"

His reflexive response nearly knocked him over before his other reflexes, the ones that actually knew what was going on, managed to save him. As it was, he simply wobbled, and one sneakered foot slipped through the railings. His mother caught a hold of it and tugged, teasingly, as her face appeared out of the stairwell.

"Tyler, what did I say you should do?"

"Something that I'm not, probably," he muttered, and then tried to redeem himself with a particularly winning smile. It made her smile in back, but in the way he recognized as her pity smile. Her _isn't it cute how you actually think you have a will of your own_ smile.

"Tyler, go clean your room, before I do it for you," she said sweetly, and added, "Now."

He tugged his foot back, sighing, and rose to his feet. "It's not like anyone is going to see my room during your party," he protested, earning another smile.

"I don't know," she said. "Are they?"

"Mom!"

"Yes, Tyler?"

"_Mom."_

"Trust is earned, Tyler. In any case, I would appreciate it if the dust bunnies you've been raising didn't decide to spread, so you can either ask them nicely, or get rid of them."

"Damn," he said. "And I was getting so attached to them."

He didn't quite dodge to slap she aimed at him for swearing. "I'll get you a puppy for Christmas to replace them," she said. "Now go."

"Wait, really?" He spun back to beam at her.

"No. I hate dogs."

"Thanks, Mom!"

"Do you ever listen to a thing I tell you?"

"No."

She shooed him on his way, already heading back downstairs. "Go."

"Going."

"Good. And _please_ go talk to Laila when you're done. That woman, I swear…."

He closed his bedroom door behind him when he reached it, and checked briefly out the windows to see if any of the men hanging lanterns on the skeletal bushes were in a position to see him. Then he jumped up and down a couple of times, grinning like a maniac, and sneezed when he kicked up a cloud of dust. Sighing, he set to work.

Half an hour later, the room was marginally cleaner, perhaps because the dust had decided to hitch a ride on him instead. The workers outside had finished, and, from the sound of it, were now employed moving heavy items of furniture about in the sitting room below, and when he glanced out of his window a shining dust of snow was falling, bright against the fading sky. He smiled at it, thinking of running through a snow like that with his dog, crunching the whiteness into patterns, and then changing tack to imagine walking that same path that he normally ran, along the lake edge, with Jeremy right by him.

He had a very one-track mind. Sometimes it could be a problem.

Shaking his head, he sneezed again, and made a face when he realized the dust had worked itself throughout his clothing, and was beginning to combine with his sweat in unpleasant ways. He grabbed the first shirt he saw in his closet, and the suit that hung on the door, and headed for the shower. Setting them down by the sink, he paused, and then turned back.

It was very nearly Christmas and he had a number of things he wanted, and a very bad track record when it came to being good. He might as well wear a nice shirt. Hell, if it could tip the balance of fate in his favor, he'd even wear a tie.

**...  
**

**You know what I think about the magic button. Hit it, people.**

**-I'm also going to be starting another series, which will be _seriously_ mature, to celebrate how happy Klaus is making me by saving the show from Stefan. (Yes, he's psycho, but who on this show _hasn't_ killed somebody?) (Also, the whole Season Two Finale thing gets _way_ less traumatic if you watch it while listening to Lady Gaga sing "Monster." It's brilliant. I totally recommend it.)**

**_So,_**** if you feel like tuning in to my somewhat creepier channel, _Good Things_ should be up around Christmas time, and will probably feature as many of your favorite pairings as I can possibly fit, which means a lot. **


	16. Polite: When We Know They're Watching

**There's a rant, here. Just skip it, if you want to read the actual chapter. (But why would you?)**

_** (I'm guessing ages, because the Lord only knows how time passes on this show-apparently it's summer now, and I was still waiting for winter to happen, because they show you seasons mostly by what the characters were wearing, and apparently "Virginia" "winter" wear looks like Vermont underwear in July. Silly me. I'm pretty sure it's summer now because all the guys are wearing cargo shorts, and they're not in school...even MORE than normal. So.  
**_

_** I am also writing this imagining the characters as ACTUALLY THEIR AGE. (This will probably be the beginning of this story's rant series, That Is Not A Teenage Boy.) While I do think Michael Trevino is doing brilliantly, and is one of the most reasonable casting choices, given Tyler's character...he's also 26 years old. Steven R. McQueen is 23, which is no way reasonable for a 15 year old character. Yes, I think he's talented, but he was almost certainly not cast **_**in spite**_** of his age, and probably **_**because**_** of it. If he had been 15 when he auditioned, he would not have been cast. 15, 16, or 17 is not too young to be an experienced and talented actor, but boys that age are simply not cast to play characters their own age, because...they look like teenage boys? Unlike girls the same age, who can look nearly like grown women, teen guys really don't look like men, and so they aren't really...attractive: we are geared to want fully developed **_**adults**_**, and so adult qualities are built into our ideal images. This is good, generally. What isn't good is that it's very hard for me-age 16-to watch this show without thinking, "That's what I'm supposed to be like? 6 inches taller than most guys I know, musclebound, uninterested in school, and at inclined to random violence? (Another point to Tyler, here: yes, he's rude and he's violent and he makes bad choices, but he also both knows and regrets this, and takes some steps to prevent doing it again. With the others, it's mostly just forgotten, because, you know, guys yell. And throw stuff. And punch each other. And stab each other. And it's not weird that Matt shot somebody with a sniper rifle!) Okay. Because apparently that's what MEN do."  
**_

_** It disturbs me no end that we are supposed to accept the Jeremy has had sex, multiple times, at 15. It's not that I don't think people should do that, ever: there are some guys who, okay, sure. But there are also some guys who haven't even really started puberty at that age, and the fact that the show does not treat this as, if not inadvisable, then at least unusual-or even acknowledge that there are people who aren't doing it?...is disturbing. **_

_**SO THE POINT IS I'm going to describe them like they're slightly closer to possible, and erasing the whole Jeremy+sex thing from my mind (Honestly, I think it's fifty-fifty that Tyler would have done it, but whatever.) **_

**_)_  
**

**2. Polite/ When We Know They're Watching.**

Jeremy had always been on his best behavior for the holidays. He chatted with people, kept an eye on his language, played along with most things that were suggested to him and even put in an effort to enjoy them. Christmas, as he had always been reminded, was a time for family, and even if he thought his family was stupid a great deal of the time, he loved them nonetheless, and if they wanted to drape the house in tinsel, he would indulge them.

It was true more than ever now, even with most of their family gone, because he knew that things like their first Christmas without parents were significant to Elena, monuments to what had happened and somehow signs of how the future would go, and so he had decided that he would let her have her symbolic Christmas, however she wanted it to go. So far, he was pleased to see, that involved a minimum of brooding—maybe just because nothing had gone wrong yet, but, possibly, because she was learning how to handle not getting her way again.

He'd kept an eye on her for the first few minutes, as they separated to test the social waters Mrs. Lockwood's party on their own, but she had settled down into a conversation, seemingly at complete ease, and he turned his attention to his own problems. He had an unusual number of them, even for him.

The first of them was Tyler, standing behind him, and the second was how _close_ he was. The third was the sound of his voice when he said "Hey," trying to keep his voice low despite the fact that Tyler simply didn't have an inside voice, and ending up with something too deep to be a whisper, but that might well be called a purr.

After that thought, he was briefly sidetracked into considering whether or not cat metaphors could really be applied to Tyler. The word certainly described what just happened, but it just didn't feel right. He was pretty sure that he was only wondering to drown out the other mental voice, which had _definitely _just responded with a purr. It took a minute for him to remember to say, "Hey."

It's rather awkward talking to somebody with their back to you, so when Jeremy turned his head to look back at him, Tyler stepped forward to stand beside him, rather than meeting his eyes. Or at least, that was what Jeremy decided to think Tyler was thinking, biting down the disappointment—just a flutter, not a wave. It was a Christmas party, damn it: he was going to choose to be cheerful.

And it didn't become a thousand times easier to do that when Tyler looked back up and smiled at him as soon as he was sure no one was watching. It _didn't_.

"How've you been?" he asked, and Jeremy let himself explain a little about Elena, and last night, when Alaric came over and they had had dinner like a family without that word raising any flags, and felt himself relaxing.

It had been almost a week since they'd last had a chance to see each other, what with Mrs. Lockwood's holiday campaign to prepare and assorted family activities. Jeremy had been quite pleased with himself for not thinking about that too much, before realizing that he was, in fact, thinking about it, and had given up entirely, despairing that he was at last turning into Elena. Maybe having a boyfriend simply did that to a person.

It had certainly increased the number of nights he fell asleep with his phone beside him, because he had never really gotten the point of texting until he'd realized how much fun it was to drive Tyler insane. He had relented at last, and would have offered to cut it out with the suggestive comments, if he weren't certain that he wouldn't be able to. He missed Tyler, that was the problem, and he missed him even more when he was around, because it only made it clearer how much farther apart they were than he wanted them to be.

"Are you bored already?" Tyler teased him, smiling at the way he must have just spaced out. But Jeremy could tell that he, too, would rather be anywhere but in the middle of a living room that looked perfectly, and disturbingly, unlived in.

"How come I get the 'already'?" he protested. "It's been about five minutes, and look at you."

"It's been about eighteen years," Tyler corrected him. "And eight hours already for this party."

That would explain it. "Did she make you help her with the cleaning?" he asked him, voice loaded with false pity, and Tyler swiped at him, startling some nearby ladies.

"She did," Tyler confirmed, grinning outright, and Jeremy gave himself orders never, ever to stop smiling, because he loved it when Tyler did that thing that he was doing; looking as if all it took was seeing Jeremy happy to make him laugh. There was something about the shape of it, the way his mouth curved just a little, as if he were too happy to risk letting all of it out at once, which Jeremy could always recognize, after hours of watching for it.

He'd willingly admit he spent too much time watching Tyler. It was just a habit by this point. He tried to keep it under control in public, and appreciated that Tyler was holding back as well, in his own way: staying at exactly the distance that kept Jeremy outside his danger zone—Tyler had a slightly compulsive habit of grabbing things that came close enough, Jeremy had learned—and avoiding meeting Jeremy's eyes for too long, or speaking with his usual exuberance.

Unfortunately, he was still making it extremely hard for Jeremy to remember his manners. He sighed.

"Why are you wearing that?" he asked, only slightly whiny.

Tyler looked down at himself, and enough of the smile was left for Jeremy to be fairly sure that he was teasing again when he said, "What do you mean?" with all the dubious innocence that he was capable of. On the one hand, that meant that he knew what Jeremy was thinking about—on the other, the thought that he did was kind of a major turn on. "It's just a suit, Jeremy."

Jeremy sighed. "It looks…nice," he said, bitterly. _Tyler_ looked nice, actually, and the suit fit well enough to show that off. Dark colors made his skin look even paler, and Jeremy had a major thing for Tyler's skin already, somehow fascinated by how delicate it seemed up close, like china. He sometimes has the impression Tyler had been designed and made, the way someone would make a doll, with great dark eyes and strong features that stood out against the background, precisely proportioned limbs under a costume designed to contrast. Tyler wasn't beautiful, but he looked right, everything designed to work together. It was a reasonable theory, but Jeremy hadn't thought of a polite way yet to ask him for his serial number.

He liked looking at Tyler at any opportunity, but being himself, he always wanted things most when he couldn't have them. Tyler hadn't actually told him that he couldn't do the things that went along with that addiction, but he had also made it clear that he wouldn't be initiating anything beyond making out between them, and Jeremy still wasn't sure how he'd respond if Jeremy started it.

It wasn't something they had talked about, so Jeremy didn't know if it was a decision made for their better interests—Tyler certainly had a bad track-record with relationships, probably because Jeremy was pretty sure he'd never _had_ a relationship that wasn't based on sex before. There was a chance, too, that Tyler simply hadn't thought that far into things yet, because while he was pretty much convinced by now that Tyler liked or loved him just as much as Jeremy did, he was still _Tyler_, and he changed slowly, when he changed at all. It probably hadn't occurred to him yet that the two of them could have all the things that he must have tried not to even think about, for real.

Jeremy was working on changing that, but sadly, in the middle of a crowded party, with tasteful Christmas music playing and virtually everyone in town, was not a good place to do that. However much he might, suddenly, have needed a chance to get his fingers under Tyler's collar and loosen it enough to find a spot on his neck to kiss. That would be bad.

It wasn't that they were against their families knowing—Tyler was the one who made that clear, because Tyler was endearingly earnest sometimes, and the guilt that he felt for some things he had done had led to him suppressing his dickish tendencies when he could. Jeremy was pretty sure Tyler was, in fact, wholly opposed to his mother knowing anything about his personal life whatsoever, but he also didn't want Jeremy to take that the wrong way, which was sort of cute. It was simple self-preservation, though, in this town: letting anybody know your secrets made you a target—not of violence, or even malevolence, particularly, but gossip and the inescapable _drama _were just as certain and far more aggravating.

So he couldn't just take Tyler's clothing off him in the middle of this stiflingly polite holiday party—there were, admittedly, other reasons why he _shouldn't_, but what he should went out the window when the other option involved Tyler.

Tyler shifted from foot to foot, awkward once more. "Um, thanks," he said, and then paused, looking up at Jeremy again. "You too. Very."

Jeremy sighed. "Tyler?"

"Yeah?"

"How much longer do we have to stay down here?"

Tyler scanned the room, and Jeremy could tell he when he caught sight of his mother by the look that crossed his face. "Not for at least another five minutes."

"Tyler?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm bored."

"I know." Tyler shook his head, and then grinned at him. "But it's Christmas."

Jeremy was too busy planning how to kiss that smile away to be irritated with him for that.


	17. Closer: Don't Be Shy

**Oh****...my...god... (Don't look at me, okay? I am not here. I am invisible.)**

**Ahem. This was actually going to go...further, but it was as long as most of my chapters and I wanted to get it up on Christmas Eve (it's 11:51 PM right now, where I am), so I decided to cut it off. Which works out, because that means that there will be shenanigans on Christmas (I have waited all my life to say that; I only just realized). Then an in between chapter or two, and _extreme_ shenanigans on New Years. Planning: it's fun. I should do it more often. **

**3. Closer-Don't Be Shy**

Tyler left after a few minutes to greet and chat with his mother's friends and grab a drink from the table. He shouldn't have gone over to Jeremy in the first place, but as usual he had done it anyways, and now he needed something to distract himself again.

It didn't help that, nodding in response to a tall, whippy gossip named Sylvia, he managed to remember the details of the dream he had been having before delivery vans woke him that morning, and he nearly dropped his glass. She gave him a look, somewhere between disapproval and morbid, rabid curiosity, and he wandered off as quickly as he possibly could, making a point not to turn his head in case he caught a glimpse of Jeremy.

He wasn't being cowardly, he reassured himself—just an idiot. He knew he couldn't handle being close to Jeremy in public without doing something embarrassing and/or illegal, and then he went and snuggled up as close to him as it was possible to while standing and surrounded by strangers. The last time that he'd done that, they'd given up on playing pool after fifteen minutes to drag themselves out back and kiss each other stupid, although considering the trouble they then had explaining the dirt and bruises they had picked up, and the buttons that had been lost, there probably hadn't been very far for them to go.

But Jeremy had looked so confident and grown up, and so totally adorable—less because there was anything adorable about him than because there _wasn't_, and somehow there was a part of Tyler that went disturbingly warm and fluffy over that fact, though that part reacted the same way when Jeremy breathed particularly loudly. And it also just happened to be the bit that had control of his motor functions, so of course he hadn't been able to resist going over to—_not_—tell Jeremy how cute he was. Right. Because that would be bad. Jeremy would probably punch him, for one thing, and almost certainly wouldn't be willing to sneak off to a convenient closet where Tyler could kiss him in all the places he'd been dreaming about for at least for at least another half an hour.

A pretty girl whose name he probably ought to remember glowered at him, and he realized that he'd just tried to walk through her. From the way other nearby people were looking at him, she wasn't the first one, either—but, with her back against a table, she didn't have the option to dodge.

Fuck. He gave up, and went to look for Jeremy.

Who, apparently, had gone to do the same thing—he assumed, he _hoped_, because Jeremy was notoriously antisocial, and if Tyler thought this party was boring, Jeremy must have been about to start swigging the champagne on the table straight from the bottle, even though he knew Jeremy hated wine. Still, there was a chance that he had found somebody else to talk to, or headed home altogether, and Tyler picked up his pace, despite the other people's protests.

They finally ran into each other in the doorway, as Jeremy headed for the stairs, presumably to look for him. The guests hoping to use the door for its intended purpose flashed dirty looks at them when they stood for a little too long in the way—Jeremy's foot had slipped out from under him when they bumped into each other, each looking the other way, and Tyler caught him by his elbows and held him there. He opened his mouth to say something—at the moment it was a toss up between "Oh, hey," and "Can I fuck you, please?" to see which one would come out—but, fortunately, Jeremy put a hurried finger to his lips and Tyler remembered to swallow it down until everyone around them had moved on or returned to their conversations.

The last woman hurried by and Jeremy caught his breath, looking around for anyone close enough or inclined to listen to them.

"Want to go?" Tyler anticipated him, and bit back a little shiver at how quickly Jeremy nodded yes.

There was his bedroom upstairs, which—hopefully—would be empty, but it would be hard for Tyler to think of an excuse if anyone saw them heading up there, because apparently he had three brain cells left and all of them were busy with better things. In any case, there were _stairs_ in between them and there, and time, and lots of things that weren't Jeremy's breath against his ear and the tiny almost-kisses he kept brushing over the side of Tyler's neck, and so were about as interesting as macramé.

There was the coatroom, though. On days when two hundred people weren't wandering around the house the room was a spare bedroom, and he paused for a moment, looking at the twin bed—but, no, people might need to get something from their purses, and didn't need to see Jeremy shirtless, and he didn't dare to lock the door. The room did connect to a second, smaller spare nest door, though, and when Jeremy looked towards the door he nodded, and let Jeremy pull him through.

They were kissing as soon as the door clicked back into its frame, and Tyler let Jeremy steer from that point, because he was entirely occupied with other things. After four months they were still less than graceful when it came to kissing, and Tyler at least hoped that they never learned to stop bumping their noses or scraping teeth together, because while it might hurt when Jeremy came a little closer to biting than sucking on his lip or gave him other, completely unsexy bruises from smacking their foreheads against each other, it went to show how much both of them wanted it, and he wouldn't trade that feeling for anything. Especially not when Jeremy, impatient, would thread his fingers into Tyler's hair above his ear and force his face closer, sometimes leaving long scratches behind his nails. He could take or leave the pain, but he was pretty sure some little part of Jeremy got off on doing it, and that was a part he'd be happy to see more of—and, anyway, Jeremy's fingers clenched around any part of him was enough to do it for Tyler, so it was worth it, by far.

He liked the feeling of Jeremy's hands in general, and under his shirt especially, where he was happy to find them quite quickly. Jeremy dragged him to the nearest wall, pressing himself against it and responding with an eager, throaty sound when Tyler covered him with his own body. Tyler obligingly applied his full weight, pinning him against the wall, and spent a couple more moments enjoying the sounds that that produced, before the fact that Jeremy's chest was now flat against his came to his attention. He pushed one knee between Jeremy's and used the other to pin his left leg, keeping their lower bodies flush together, and freeing hands for exploration.

Jeremy's palms were pressed against his lower back under his jacket, warm and rough and just beginning to dampen Tyler's shirt with sweat above his hipbones, and when Tyler shoved his own hands under the hem of his shirt, the gentle tug he got in encouragement did more to spur him on than anything he could have imagined. He spread one hand over Jeremy's own hip, pausing to draw little circles on his stomach with his thumb and kissing Jeremy a little more deeply to distract him. Tyler had been debating for weeks now over that particular fixation: there was something about the baby soft skin that made him want to stroke and kiss all down Jeremy's sides and stomach, but he wasn't quite sure how that one would go over, because Jeremy generally wanted them both to get their shirts off and get back to kissing, and Tyler was pretty sure he was at least a little ticklish.

He was pretty sure that shouldn't turn him on, but honestly, he'd given up being surprised by the growing—and disturbing—list.

As usual, the twin desires of keeping Jeremy happy and keeping things moving, because he had no patience, and yeah, that was a good and bad thing at the same time, kept his right hand where it was and the other moving upward, over Jeremy's ribs and then around to the middle of his back, tucking his shirt out of its tucks and bunching it up as he went, rather than bothering to undo buttons.

Jeremy seemed not to mind, moaning or murmuring something inaudible over Tyler's cheek as he pulled back briefly to breathe, before sucking Tyler's lower back into his mouth and scraping it between his teeth when Tyler protested the separation of their mouths. He let it go again and pressed his mouth back to Tyler's, blowing a soft breath of warm air between Tyler's parted lips, followed by the tip of his tongue. Tyler couldn't help gasping a little at that, grabbing hold of Jeremy and pulling him away from the wall, tighter against him, and Jeremy responded by withdrawing his hands from under Tyler's suit jacket and lifting them to wrap around his neck.

He had no way of telling, senses overloaded by proximity to Jeremy, but Tyler was fairly sure he'd left bruises behind.

God, he hoped so.


	18. Cross My Heart

**I actually did write (most of, okay) this on time, but then things got in the way...(like whoa. Family medical emergency.)**

**In self defense, I am not going to reread what I wrote before posting it (like I ever do?), because I truly have NO IDEA what kind of shenanigans might be going on here that I wrote and then forgot about. ...Not much to say, this time, but I will have exciting news to share next chapter!**

**(Dude. Yes, I just announced announcing something. How thrilling. It's late, even by my standards. I really need to go to bed. Or have more coffee, I suppose...)  
**

**4. Cross my heart**

Sometimes Jeremy had trouble believing what was happening. It wasn't _this_ that he doubted, not anymore—most of the time. But since when did he have, well, such good _taste_?

Tyler was classically gorgeous, he was pretty sure—he was also one of those people who looked much, much better when their clothing was in disarray, which was making it hard for Jeremy to be objective at the moment. Jeremy never liked things that normal people did, something he knew wasn't always a positive personality trait. But more remarkable than that was that Tyler was also…nice, straight up—such a _traditionally_ kind of nicety it was closer to chivalry, really, the kind of nice that guys were allowed to be without it making them less manly, and since when was Jeremy so into something so _normal, _so wholesome (in the not-really-healthy way that he thought most popular ideals usually were)?

He wouldn't deny the guy was capable of being an absolute asshole, usually because of all the character traits that, on their own, were among the nice things about him. But he was also gentle, and thoughtful in his weird way, and that drove Jeremy half insane when they were together, because once the first, eager moments were over, Tyler went so goddamn _slow_. He'd kiss Jeremy, and stroke up and down his sides, and wait after nearly every movement for some sign of approval before moving on. He acted so fucking innocent, as though the pace and his behavior weren't driving Jeremy up the wall; and, Jeremy was almost ashamed to admit, that in itself was a major turn on. He loved that inconvenient, impossible innocence, because every kiss and bruise and bite that he found himself unable to resist leaving behind felt like an effort to take it away, and maybe he was happy that it wasn't working, or pleased because it was. Or maybe he was just severely messed up; but he loved it all the same. Any chance to get his hands on Tyler was a treasure, but leaving scars of some kind behind them was better still.

The best was when Tyler dragged him towards the bed and sat down on the edge so Jeremy could stand between his legs, not just because of the feeling of it but also because that way the top of Tyler's head was just below eyelevel, and there wasn't any reason Jeremy couldn't scrape his fingers over Tyler's throat, or wrap them into his messy hair, and tug.

He suspected that that would be, anyway, but he'd never had the nerve to do it before, because he was pretty sure Tyler wasn't too fond of his fetish for causing pain. But he'd never stopped him, either, and Jeremy knew that he would have done so if he didn't trust Jeremy to stop himself if asked.

So Jeremy sucked in a final breath—either for courage or to make sure he had some oxygen on reserve if he forgot to take another one—and when Tyler tipped his face up for another kiss, he stopped him with a thumb over each of Tyler's cheekbones, making certain that Tyler met his eyes. He did, after a moment; caught and held his gaze with those big brown eyes, and kept them on him even after Jeremy moved his hands, one sliding down to the sensitive skin at the back of Tyler's neck and tracing one finger of the other along his jaw. Only when Jeremy pressed harder and turned, so that that fingernail left a crescent streak on the skin by his ear did Tyler look away, not to protest, but to begin hastily undoing the buttons of Jeremy's shirt, which he had previously ignored.

He bent forward to press a kiss to the triangle of Jeremy's chest revealed just as Jeremy drew a second, deeper scratch across the first one, and the line quickly turned red. He grabbed Tyler again, pulling him back up and kissing first the corner of his mouth, then kissing, licking, the drop of blood, before moving back to his mouth again, Tyler—somewhat confusedly—responding.

He was a little less confused when Jeremy bit him, hard, and for a moment Jeremy though he was going to get punched. He just hadn't been able to help it. But Tyler just blinked, twice, and then grabbed onto Jeremy's belt to haul him closer.

Jeremy had to swallow, hard, when their hips bumped together. And then Tyler had both their belts undone and his fingers fumbling with the zip of Jeremy's pants—then they were inside, brushing over Jeremy's dick through his boxers, and, hey, coherent thought was overrated. So Jeremy just kissed the scrape on Tyler's cheek again and made small, breathy noises until Tyler had his suit pants tugged halfway down from his hips. Shifting forward awkwardly, he got his feet tangled with Jeremy's and swore, and Jeremy woke from his fog enough to notice that Tyler's own pants were still in place, and hurried to correct that.

Tyler made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a growl when Jeremy yanked his fly down and ghosted his fingers over the outline of his dick—and that was the end of torturing Tyler for the evening, because he made another, louder, noise, and then Tyler's fingers where around Jeremy's dick, properly, and he was gripping pretty hard, which kind of hurt. But Jeremy'd already established he had some issues, and it wasn't very long before he was making noises of his own and it was all that he could do to persuade Tyler to let him return the favor—Tyler, admirably focused, took a moment or two to work out what Jeremy was doing, and raise his hips to help Jeremy pull his boxers down and over—and get it done. He was already close to coming; because, hell, all Tyler really had to do was look at him hard, much less touch his dick—or brush his fingertips up and down it, with fucking lovely baseball calluses scratching just a little and making up for how god damn gentle Tyler always has to be about this, which Jeremy would never admit was, okay, sort of hot too—but touching him was pretty much Jeremy's limit.

He'd be a bit more embarrassed about how fast he can come just from the feeling of Tyler's dick, hot and silky smooth and, well, _Tyler_, if it wasn't so fucking good, and he weren't sure anyone else would do the same—if they ever got a chance to try, which they _wouldn't._

He did feel a bit sorry for biting Tyler's neck, which he had been engaged in kissing; but that was Tyler's fault, completely, his brain decided, through its happy orgasmic fog, because he wouldn't do it quite so often if it weren't so much fun. Anyway, Tyler didn't really seem to mind, or at least he didn't once Jeremy's brain, operating on fairly basic emergency settings, decided the best course of action was to move his hand faster. It was just as well he no longer needed one hand on Tyler's shoulder to prop himself up, because he needed it on Tyler's hip to keep him in place: a partly logistical issue, because Tyler wasn't in much of a state to notice that he was close to pulling them both over backwards, and partly because Jeremy liked pinning Tyler when he wanted to move.

Then Tyler gasped particularly loudly, and seemed about to stop breathing entirely. Jeremy didn't even care that he'd completely lost his balance, and unlike Tyler wasn't too distracted to hurt when they landed beside each other, legs tangled and knees bruised, half on and off the bed. All that really mattered was Tyler's face, his eyes fluttering closed, because Tyler had an amazing ability to fall asleep after sex which would drive Jeremy nuts if Tyler didn't also always seem to do it on him.

He sighed—just a little; he couldn't help being a little bit resentful, because he was sixteen, and two or three minutes was plenty of time when it was spent watching _that_ particular show, so he'd be happy for a chance to go again—adjusted himself so Tyler could use him as a pillow, and let his head fall back into the pillows, propped up just enough to watch Tyler as he drifted and mumbled his way to sleep.

For now, all that he needed to worry about was how exactly he could deserve somebody so beautiful, and how he was going to keep him anyways, given that he didn't.

The rest they'd deal with when Tyler had woken up—and, knowing him, punched Jeremy once for that bite, and gotten something to eat. Actually, Jeremy could do with that, too. Not the punching part; he wasn't quite that weird.

Not yet, anyway.

**...**

**Reviews?**

**(Or...maybe not...)**

**No, actually, I would like to know what you think about this story, because I've never written...this...before...**


	19. Shadows: Where It's Hot

**This story is officially never going to die. I've thought up at least three more series worth of stuff I want to do with them...(Sigh. Of course I did.) **

**They'll take ages to write, and will probably be posted as separate stories because they should be able to stand alone (because absolutely no plot has happened in this so far? How did I even manage that? I mean, really) but...so you know. I'll have more to say about that by the final chapter, probably.**

**I had two other things to announce, but I kind of failed at getting them organized, so I'll do that next time.  
**

**5. Shadows/Where it's hot (Getting Caught)**

There would be about an hour window between when most of the guests would clear out and when Mrs. Lockwood would be revived enough to potentially check the spare room for forgotten items, or her son's room for her son, and during which time it would be safe for them to leave. The state their clothes were in put paid to any thoughts of moving before them, and Tyler was happy enough to see them go.

Jeremy had reassured him that the other Gilberts wouldn't even notice if he didn't go home with them. Remembering the last time Elena had slapped him for being 'mean' to her darling boy—Jeremy had, in fact, been 'acting oddly' because one generally did when nearly caught groping another boy in the bathroom of the Grill—Tyler thought Jeremy was slightly misrepresenting things. But he wasn't inclined to argue. If Jeremy wanted him to think that he wasn't getting in trouble for coming in late, that was fine by him. It wasn't that he didn't, in private, worry about Jeremy's life at home: but if Jeremy thought he could handle it on his own, he wouldn't interfere. He certainly wouldn't give their stolen hours up in exchange—Jeremy had managed to be late every night even before they started hanging out, and at least this was a step up from recreational drugs.

And it was kind of cute, really, that Jeremy thought Tyler couldn't tell when he was telling a lie. He wasn't sure if it was because Jeremy underestimated Tyler's intelligence or overestimated his own, and he didn't really care to find out. In the scheme of things, Jeremy's positives balanced it out.

His talents as a pillow, for example, deserved a great more recognition than Tyler felt they received. He lifted his head briefly to check for continued sounds from the other room, then lowered it to Jeremy's shoulder again, reassured that the party was still in full swing. He had no intention of moving before then.

It wasn't as though it was entirely faked: he did always feel sleepy after. He just didn't necessarily _need_ to fall asleep, and probability alone didn't account for nearly all of the times that he happened to end up on Jeremy.

He didn't, he would admit, sleep with his hands tucked under his cheek in any other situation. But anyone who didn't want to spend a bit more time touching Jeremy's chest couldn't be human. He was just so warm, and soft and firm at the same time, and Tyler's…touching thing…had never realized how fascinating something as simple as skin could be before it encountered Jeremy, and now it just wouldn't shut up about it. Jeremy let him get away with lingering caresses when he didn't realize Tyler was doing it on purpose, and he was happy to take advantage of that.

The fact that he didn't mind, and even seemed happy when Tyler dozed on him, actually made Tyler suspect that Jeremy did like his slower, thorough approach—or might, and he hoped that he could test the theory, someday. Very much so: he had decided a while back that he wasn't going to anything more than _think_ about fucking Jeremy until Jeremy made a move that way, but that had been quickly qualified. He wasn't doing anything until Jeremy agreed to do it his way—which sounded horrible, which Tyler thought was pretty funny, because Jeremy was the one who'd want to do it hard and fast.

Which Tyler was quite enthusiastic about, too, for the record. But he wanted it both ways, and he was pretty sure that if he let Jeremy set their pace he'd never have a chance to pull himself away and ask if they could slow down.

So he was pretty much stuck hoping. Except….

"Jeremy?" he asked.

Jeremy lifted his head a bit—Tyler had been half-hoping that he'd fallen asleep too, which he sometimes did when they curled up like this and never admitted to. But he was glad that he hadn't, now, because somehow what he'd just thought seemed important to say. Tyler had learned to just go with it, when that happened, because his subconscious was probably a lot smarter than he was. "Yeah?"

He turned, so that his chin was on Jeremy's collarbone, instead of his cheek, and he could watch Jeremy's mouth even if the angle was still wrong to glimpse his eyes. "Hey, Jeremy—I know what I want for Christmas."

Jeremy blew out a sigh. "That's lovely, Tyler. So, are you five, now—because I'm pretty sure what we just did was illegal, if so."

"It probably was anyway. You have weird ways of expressing your affection."

"I'm not expressing anything. Come on, Ty, get off me already. I'm bored."

Tyler tucked one hand under his chin for comfort, and considered. "Why?"

"Wh-? Because, unlike you, I don't need _naptime_ in between. Come on, we've got another half an hour, at least—"

"But I'm tired."

"What are you, a cat?"

"I didn't sleep last night." He adjusted again, so he was properly on his stomach, and Jeremy's shoulder didn't dig into his chest. "Your fault."

That made Jeremy pause, and blush. Tyler leaned forward to kiss him on the chin.

"Okay, fine," Jeremy said, seeming mollified, and slightly shamed. "What do you want me to do?"

Tyler kissed him again, at the side of his jaw. "What do you mean?"

"Don't—"

"I don't want you to give me anything," he said. "Sort of. 'S more like, what I'm going to do, and then you'll do something. Lots of things. Hopefully."

"O…kay. I don't _get_ y—"

There was a loud, fortunately distant, slam, a cry of, "Oh, thank _goodness"_, and the sound of a delicate pair of heels tromping up the stairs.

Jeremy froze. "That…"

"Is normal." Tyler listened. "Yup, everybody must be gone. She's going to make herself a mug of hot chocolate and read Vogue for half an hour or so, then she'll realize she'll feel better with her shoes off, so she's change….Then she'll remember to come back down and straighten up."

"Oh…." Jeremy frowned, then sat up, dislodging Tyler from his nest. He sank back a little, stroking Tyler's hair once in apology. "So, we should be heading out."

"Probably." Tyler pushed himself upright, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed to search for his jacket and coming up with Jeremy's shirt. "Here."

Jeremy shrugged it on as Tyler donned his suit coat—it had ended up under the quilt, he wasn't sure how—and started doing up the buttons. Tyler noticed, and offered his help, which Jeremy cheerfully accepted until they both realized that they had done the same button six times: how it kept coming undone, neither of them would admit to knowing.

Sighing, Jeremy pulled back from the kiss, and Tyler removed his hand from Jeremy's pants. He zipped his own, unwillingly, and shooed Jeremy off the bed so he could straighten it up some, making a mental note to do it properly later. When that was done, he checked to make sure that they each had everything they'd come in with—except their dignity and their marbles, which where probably lost beneath the bed—and gave Jeremy a kiss in reward. Jeremy hummed happily, and tried to drag him back onto the bed, but Tyler rolled his eyes and pulled him the other way, towards the door.

"I hate you," Jeremy told him as they left the coatroom and stepped cautiously into the darkened hall, kissing the back of Tyler's ear to illustrate his point.

"Fuck you, Gilbert, I'm trying to prevent us being caught in a closet by my _mother."_

"'S not a closet."

"Jer—"

"There's a bed."

"Good point." Tyler paused at the end of the hall, wavering.

"Tyler?"

"Fuck! I mean, _fuck,"_ he rephrased, dropping his voice to a whisper and clamping a hand tight over Jeremy's mouth.

"Tyler, could you…" his mother called again from the second floor. Then, "Oh, sorry. Goodnight, dear," more quietly, as she apparently decided that he must be asleep already.

They waited another moment or two, until she must have headed back down the upstairs hall, and Tyler judged it safe to sneak out through the sitting room and dart past the stairs to the door.

Outside, Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief, and Tyler turned to look at him; judging, yet again, how scared Jeremy really was of being caught that way. The other boy must have noticed his gaze—or simply that Tyler had stopped moving at the top of the steps—and smiled at him, not seeming to understand the shivers of relief that worked their way down Tyler's spine. His mother was draconian but not actually malevolent, and Jeremy's expression betrayed nothing stronger than the automatic, healthy terror her that every citizen of Mystic felt. He wasn't about to tell anyone what was going on between them, because there was no one he felt needed to know, but he liked thinking Jeremy wouldn't mind if he did, because that meant that—maybe?—there were people Jeremy would like to tell, and Tyler loved thoughts that involved the words _Jeremy_ and _want_ anywhere near _having sex with him_, whatever the context.

"So, I should go," Jeremy said.

Tyler stopped short. "Do you need a ride?"

Jeremy grinned broadly at that. "I brought the truck," he said. "Just parked it in back so nobody would notice if it was still there when everyone else left."

"You are a genius," Tyler told him.

"And I'm hot, too," Jeremy answered, looking more than a little bit smug. Tyler would smack him, if he didn't have such good reason to be.

He followed Jeremy down the front steps and around to the access drive in back, where Jeremy's ugly but undeniably convenient old farm truck was rather badly parked. Tyler wasn't entirely sure where Jeremy had gotten the thing—he'd wanted to buy his first car on his own, and Tyler had been a bit worried that Jeremy would end up getting ripped off. Seeing the truck had stopped him worrying, at least, because there was no possible way somebody _couldn't_ have been ripped off, if they paid money for it. Jeremy had called him an elitist, which Tyler responded was a fancy way of saying snob, so who was being one there? But he had to admit, the truck, now affectionately known as Matilda by the Gilberts for reasons that escaped him, had grown on him, especially after he had seen exactly how much easier her old fashioned, joined seats had made it to make out in the school parking lot without getting the usual car-related bruises.

Jeremy searched his pockets for his keys, and Tyler leaned against the side of her bed to watch him. "Was it icy driving up here?"

"Not really." Jeremy frowned, and tried the other pocket. "It still warm. And anyway, Matilda steers well enough."

"She corners like a cow. What do you want for Christmas?" Jeremy moved onto his coat pockets, and Tyler briefly hoped that they had managed to lose his keys somewhere in the room, and he'd just have to stay the night.

"I don't know. Ah." He pulled them out and unlocked the door, and suddenly stopped with his hand on the door handle. "Why?"

"It's almost Christmas, Jeremy; it's not like you've never been asked the question before."

"Yeah, but….You said you didn't want anything."

Tyler blew out a sigh and stuck his hands in his own pockets, because it was colder than he would have preferred. "I don't want anything from you, I said. Or…yeah. Nothing that you won't give me just by being the same as always. Come on, Jer; just answer the question. What do you want?"

Jeremy opened the door the rest of the way, gazing up into the sky as though he were considering.

"Okay," he said at the end. "Okay, I guess. I want to you."

He kissed Tyler one more time, on the corner of his mouth, and got into the truck, turning the key.

Matilda's taillights quickly vanished around the bend, and Jeremy was gone, leaving nothing but the darkness and a faint taste of teenage boy and fresh apples behind him. Tyler ran his tongue once around his lips and raised his hand to touch the spot, just once: then he turned, pulling his jacket tighter around himself against the night's chill, and headed back into the house.

He made sure that he was quiet on the way up to his room. There was no way that Jeremy wasn't going to get in trouble for breaking curfew for the thousandth time, but Tyler's mother didn't need to know that he'd been anywhere but where she thought he was, in bed.

She might have assumed it was the bed of some skanky stranger, knowing her, but still. It was the look of the thing that mattered.

Anyway, he wanted to get some sleep: he was going to have a lot of work to do.

**...**

**You want to. You know you do.**

**Review?  
**


	20. Play Pretend: Cause I Like It Like That

**Hello, my preciouses. Happy new year. **

**As my father put it when I called him, "It can't possibly get any worse. Wait...yeah, no, I guess that it can." **

**Cheery man, he is.**

**In any case, I had some fun with this chapter. As you will recall (or not, if you don't feel like it, I can't control what you think. Though in this case it would be a little bit like not thinking of pink elephants, unless of course you simply choose not to read the following statement of what you will or won't be remembering), I've agreed to add three more stories to this. Why I do not know. Ignore that. At the rate at which I seem to write, they will probably take the next four or five years, each one being ten to twenty chapters or more, and taking Tyler and Jeremy through and out of college (though not too old, because that would just be weird. I suppose I'll stop at the actors' actual ages-because I haven't complained enough about HE'S 26 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE.) I do have a bit of a dislike for established-relationship stories, so in an effort to keep it interesting I promise I'll throw in plenty of potentially de-establishing drama and such like, and hopefully it'll both cure me and go some way towards pacifying those of you who suffer from the same allergy. **

**Hints as to what is going to happen in them are scattered through the chapter, (isn't it nice how that sentence makes it sound like I knowingly scattered them, like literary Easter eggs but not as tasty-I'm talking about the chocolate kind here, obviously. What kind of freak do you think I am?-rather than looking back afterwords and thinking that it would save a lot of time if I used random phrases from this chapter to pick the songs I'll use to write the new stories?), so if anybody comes up with any predictions of what I'm planning to do, I'd _love_ to hear them (because I have no idea. Ignore that.)(Because then I'll get to laugh at how totally out there your guesses are. Ignore that too, although it's probably more accurate.)  
**

**Have you noticed I will say ANY fool thing to get you lot to give me reviews?  
**

**6. Play Pretend (Cause I like it like that)**

Once he was safe in his room, Jeremy set his alarm for five thirty in the morning. Considering his recent luck and deciding not to push it, he lowered the volume enough that it wouldn't wake Elena.

It wasn't exactly his favorite hour to rise-just about the opposite. But he doubted he'd be able to stay asleep long anyway, and he wanted to make sure he'd be first for the shower. He ought to take one now, but not much luck, and too much pushing, didn't tend to work out well for him. He'd only just escaped the lecturing for coming back so late—Elena had caught him after Jenna's _"My god, what are you children doing to me? I used to have a _life_, and now I stay up _worrying_, and dammit, aren't you the cell phone generation, couldn't you just _call?" had finally finished up, and decided his evening just wouldn't be complete without a bit of _"I know you're depressed, but so am I, and why can't you just accept that things would be better if you did what I told you—like not doing drugs, even though I totally drink, too. Maybe I should send you to Stefan to counseling. Wait, are you high right now?"_ All in all, he figured, the one thing that he didn't need to do was run the shower at half past midnight, because they'd want a reason, and "I smell like sweat and come and not all of it's mine," while quite a good one, wasn't likely to go over too well.

For the moment, he'd just have to deal with it, he thought, removing his already miss-buttoned and crumpled shirt and tossing it aside. How they hadn't noticed that, he had no idea. Maybe that was what Elena thought a person looked like after a night spent in a drug den—though who went to a den of iniquity and made it home by half past twelve, he had no idea. His shoes, pants, and boxers followed the shirt, with a mental note to drop them in the wash in the morning, too, and he found his pajamas underneath the pillow and a clean pair of underwear and put them on.

He paused for a moment before he turned off the light, and let himself grin like a lunatic for exactly thirty seconds, before flipping the switch, and climbing into bed.

It probably wasn't a surprise that he woke as hard as a rock in the morning, because he did smell noticeably of Tyler, a scent that was equal parts sweat, cologne, and the weirdly sweet-smelling energy bars that he loved and Jeremy still found somewhat terrifying. He hit the alarm's sleep button rather harder than he technically had to but not nearly as forcefully as he would like, because he did still smell of Tyler, after all, and he would have liked to stay in the dream world that that had summoned for a little while longer.

He got out of bed anyway and took his shower. Only afterwards, stepping back into his room fully dressed and functional at six in the morning, did he realize his mistake.

Twelve full hours, before they'd be back at the Lockwoods' for Carol's Christmas Eve _Eve_ party. Jeremy resisted the urge to smack himself and, with slightly more difficulty, the urge to return to bed, and went to make himself breakfast.

After a while Elena came down to join him, and he gave her some of his toast with a minimum of bickering, because he felt obliged to. She was his sister, after all, and he loved her: it was practically his duty to be a brat. How else would he convince her things were back to normal? He drew the line at letting her ask about his homework, however—"_How are you ever going to get into a good school, Jeremy? Alaric says you'd do well in school if you only _tried…."

"I doubt any amount of studying would get me into Harvard," he told her. "Which is good, because I wouldn't want to if I could go. You're hogging the couch. Move over."

Otherwise, the day passed with all the grace and speed of a lame rhinoceros, and he spent as much of it as he could in front of the television watching Christmas specials and wondering it seconds lasted longer if you counted them or if you didn't. At least it was something to do.

He did have a life that didn't revolve around Tyler, he was pretty sure of that. Most days Jeremy would even say that he was a relatively small part of his life. But those were days when he _hadn't_ spent the night before with Tyler, because no one could do that and not be a little bit distracted in the morning. Tyler might be royally annoying, but he was still pretty god damn hot.

And Jeremy was horny, and it was winter break and everyone else he knew was busy, and he was going to see Tyler again in—still too many—hours. That thought would have been enough to put him on edge in any context, because he did love simply being with Tyler, even on nights when he wasn't fairly sure they'd end up in the nearest available bathroom or linen closet.

The odds of that happening that night were fairly low, admittedly. He hoped.

By the time Jenna, who had insisted he ride with them this time, _because, Jeremy_, pulled in among the other cars along the Lockwoods' drive, hope had become something very close to desperation. Tyler might be royally annoying, but at least he didn't _talk_ the way Elena could. Jeremy might like having a boyfriend, but that didn't mean his sister's speeches about the glorious attributes of her own had become any more interesting.

Glancing up at the shining windows of the house above them, he wondered briefly what she would do if he started making speeches of his own. It probably wasn't possible for a person to laugh, cough, and suffer a heart attack at the same time, but he was pretty sure Elena would try her best. Jenna would drop whatever she was holding, swear loudly, and then go make herself a plate of nachos before hiding in her room to cry over her failure as a role model.

He resisted the urge to do it, but with difficulty. Just the thought of trying to compare Stefan and Tyler bent the universe; he didn't think he'd ever see them in the same room, much less competing for the Gilbert family's Boyfriend of the Year.

It didn't get any easier to resist the urge when they were inside, and just a minute after the door closed and the lights and tinkly music and people in sparkly clothing were all around him there was Tyler, looking like someone who might get hired to play James Bond in some kind of high-school 'origins' miniseries. Tyler just had to be one of those people who looked like an action hero when his mother made him slick his hair back with a wet comb; Jeremy just looked like someone whose mother still gave him fashion advice, and he didn't even _have_ a mother anymore; he just did it out of habit now.

Jeremy just stood there for a moment, watching him across the room, before Tyler looked up and saw him, flashing a smile that was so innocently _happy_, over something as simple as finding him, that Jeremy had a hard time not telling his family, "Come on, just look at that. All you _ever_ care about is how he messed up, and the stupid things that he does, but that's not all of it. That's so much less than all of it. How can you still not see how wonderful this boy is?"

He had a hard time not saying it for the whole room to hear—Tyler's mother, Stupid Matt; all the god damn gossips and his jerk friends and the skanky girls who cheerfully complained about him and begged for his attention in the same breath, and everybody else who ought to know Tyler twice as well as he did, but didn't care enough to try.

He didn't, but only by an effort. The rush of affection—and, he would admit, a bit of jealous satisfaction—were enough to keep him happy enough that he couldn't really complain, and when Tyler finally worked his way over to him he couldn't help beaming at him. Tyler looked taken aback, and then, shyly, thrilled. Jeremy made sure the arm holding his glass was arranged such that no one would notice Tyler's hand on his hip, his thumb tracing little circles on the cloth of Jeremy's jacket.

And when they worked their way out of the front room and up the stairs—this time to the bathroom along from Tyler's room, because while it would be suspicious for both of them to come out of there, it was also convenient and had a lock on the door—he hopped up on the tile counter and let Tyler keep on stroking circles, over his thigh and down to his knee, then back up to his neck to pull closer so that Tyler could kiss him. First on the cheek, then over his mouth—the mirror was smooth and cold against Jeremy's back as he relaxed against it. He always thought that he should think that it was weird when Tyler did that—it was something his grandmother used to do. But there was something about the way he did it, the way he would pause, before and after, with his lips just an inch from Jeremy and blow a breath against his skin like a sigh, like if he could he'd kiss every part of Jeremy just as thoroughly and sweetly as his mouth. It was so cute, and kind of scary, and Jeremy couldn't deny the rush that he got when Tyler looked at him that intensely. Because _Tyler_ was scary, in lots of ways, and most of all he when was so slow and self-assured and gentle, because when Jeremy looked up into his eyes he knew that he had no idea what Tyler was going to do next, not really. Because Tyler was a different person and he had no way of really knowing what was going on behind those eyes; he trusted him completely and he loved him so much that he knew he'd never find the strength to say it out loud, but he didn't know, and never would.

At least when Tyler moved fast, he didn't have time to think this stuff; there wasn't any chance for expectation or wonder. He wasn't reminded that he had no control over what happened from this point on, because for the first time in his life his happiness was undeniably tied up with the actions of another person, with an independent mind.

The feeling of it took his breath away, because all the odds were against this, but it had happened anyway. Jeremy had no idea, really, why Tyler was with somebody like him, and he certainly didn't know what he'd done to win him, but he had.

So, yeah, Jeremy didn't really mind much when Tyler kissed him like that, or drew warm finger up and down his stomach or ground against him, oh so painfully slow. It wasn't what he'd wanted, what he would choose, but that didn't mean that he didn't like it when it was happening.

That, he thought, was exactly what he'd say of all of this; and, leaning forward, he caught Tyler's mouth and kissed him, scraped his lip delicately with his teeth and pulled away again, pressing kisses against his forehead and up into his now-disordered hair.

Tyler caught one of Jeremy's hands in his own as it rose and stroked his thumb over the back of it. "What?" he breathed, and Jeremy could feel it against his neck, like hot white steam from the shower.

He kissed the edge of Tyler's brow one more time, resting his chin on top of Tyler's hair. "I'll tell you one day," he said. "I promise I will some day. But I don't think I can right now."

One day, he thought. And he wondered if how many years passed before then could possibly prepare him to express the wonder that he felt at liking something that he'd never, ever wanted, because it had just happened. But now that he had it and he knew, he would never let it go.

"Okay," Tyler whispered. "Okay." He paused, and Jeremy knew by his voice that he was frowning, not in his angry way, but the way that he didn't know that he did when he thought. A fingertip rubbed up and down Jeremy's neck, making him sigh, and Tyler seemed to reach a conclusion. "What do you want to do now, then?"

"I want you to kiss me," Jeremy said. "And I want to get this over with, with a minimum of talking."

"And?"

"And tomorrow…I want to come over here again—early. And stay the night," he said, deciding. "Can I?"

Tyler thought that over for a minute. "Okay," he said. "Sure, Jeremy. Okay."

**...**

**At the moment, songs are thusly, so you can listen to them if you want. It'll be like a trailer! A really, really cheap one.**

** 1. You Know (It's Only Just Begun)-_Never Gonna Be Alone, Nickelback._ Or something with Aspera, by Erin McKeown, because I love that song beyond reason. Or...I don't know. My eclectic music collection is failing me, because I remember everything by chorus and not by title and I can't find anything. Help me people. Give me something cute and sweet and maybe a bit inspiring: in case you hadn't guessed, Jeremy is damn well going to tell the world how awesome Tyler is, in _detail._  
**

** 2. One Day-_One Day Too Late, Skillet,_ although I am also considering Goodbye to Yesterday-_If Today Was Your Last Day, Nickelback_**

** Edit: Sigh. I cannot help it. All Of Time-_Wherever You Will Go, Boyce Avenue (Cover)_ is now on the list too.  
**

**3. I Will Be-_Will You Be There (the Boyce Avenue Cover_**. _**The day I find a song that doesn't sound better when covered by Boyce Avenue, I will...not believe it, probably.)**_ **Although One Day (_One Day_ by Matisyahu, BECAUSE) is** **an equally strong contender (BECAUSE). Obviously I would not do two One Days in a row. Because that would be silly.**

You are all _so_ confused now, aren't you? Good.

If any of you guess WHY One Day is in the running (okay, besides the title), I will love you forever and ever, because it's my favorite lyric and I'm wondering if it's anybody else's (and it's also ANOTHER common fanfiction plot element that I don't like and am going to include anyway, because I actually sort of do like it, after all.)


End file.
